My Family Tree

It was only 10am, and the living room floor was buried in a mass of boxes and shredded paper, there were enough toys lying about to fill an FAO Schwarz, and the kids pretty much didn't know what to do with themselves. Later in the day when more relatives (and more presents) came, that's almost all it was. more.

In fact last year was the year of 'more'. And yet, quite possibly it was the year of less.

Sarah said it BEAUTIFULLY yesterday when contemplating what this year might be like if she packed up all her decorations and tried a new approach to Christmas. She said:

"And I wonder if, on Christmas evening, I'd still feel that vague, unsettling unrest of soul I usually feel as I look around the spoils of the day and know that I missed something. That I spent the month trying to achieve and accomplish and attain, and that in the end it'll all be long gone, anyway. I wonder, if I spent the day in stillness before Him, would Christmas turn into something truly magical? Something satisfying?"

Wow! She so eloquently put in words what I have been thinking for the last several weeks. And as if God using one member of her family to convict me wasn't enough, her grandmother, Judith, wrote on the same topic, and used a powerful quote from Billy Graham. For the first time in my life I realized I had more in common with the innkeeper than I did with the Shepherds and Wise Men. His quote:

"When Mary and Joseph needed a place for the Child to be born, the innkeeper wasn't hostile; but his inn was crowded, and his mind was preoccupied, like millions are today, as Christmas nears."

This is not what I want for my kids. This is not what I want for myself. Instead of becoming so overcome with all the beauty of the holiday right in front of me, I want to be in AWE of the glory of God. To desperately seek him out like the wise men, and to humbly come before him like the shepherds. Laying aside all that seems important to me, to come and worship before him.

Now I'm not suggesting you remove all traces of modern day Christmas from your holidays this year. We will certainly not be doing that around here. (We're outnumbered in this house. A successful revolt would be a distinct possibility.) But we did want to do something a little more than just reading the Christmas story to our kids on Christmas morning. We wanted them to know more than just the fact that we celebrate Christmas because Jesus was born. We wanted are kids to begin to understand WHY he was born. So that's why I was so excited this year to come across an idea over at Shannon's that was completely new to me. The Jesse Tree. (Her links are here and here) The idea for the Jesse tree comes from Isaiah 11:1-2.

1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD -

The whole concept is to remind us that everything within the old testament leads up to the birth of Christ and our desperate need for a savior. A reminder that it's all linked together. That the Bible is not just a neat book filled with great little bedtime stories. I think that's been my favorite part of it. I've loved having discussions with my child about why we needed Jesus to come.

Shannon has set up a linky so that people can share the different ways their family is using this tool, so I thought I would join in and share ours with you. (click on the images to enlarge them.)

Each night we gather in the girls bedroom. Sporty and Posh take turns putting the ornaments up, and we read through a different passage of the Bible and emphasize how it points Jesus. We use a miniature Christmas tree, but some people use a branch or a banner with a tree drawn on it. Here's the tree that sits on the girls bookshelf in their bedroom. It was a whopping $7 at Hobby Lobby.


And here are a couple of the ornaments that we used from this book. The book also has devotionals for each story that we have adjusted to be more appropriate with the ages of our kids.



We simply printed out the pictures and then glued them to different colored paper. I hope that someday I'll be able to have a more three dimensional collection similar to Shannon's but for our first year, these are working great.

To get some more great ideas on how to use this with your family, go here. And if you do something different with your family to accomplish the same goal, I'd LOVE to hear it. Share it in the comments or leave the link to it on your blog.

And seriously, go back and read what Judith and Sarah wrote. It's really, really GREAT stuff!
Holding Baby Jesus by Judith
Christmas Pondering by Sarah