Jesse Tree: Resources for Doing Your Own

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We’ve talked about the scripture and meaning behind the Jesse Tree tradition. Here I’ll show you how we do the Jesse Tree in our home and give you lots of ideas and resources for starting your own this year!

Getting Started

You can start your Jesse Tree devotion on the on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, which is traditional for advent, or on December 1. We start December 1st because I need that transition week. 🙂

The Tree

There are many ways you can make a Jesse tree. For example:

Just add ornaments to your regular Christmas tree
Make a tree-shaped cutout from poster board, construction paper, or felt
Use a vinyl wall tree decal or some other tree-shaped wall decoration (tape the paper ornaments on)
Put a tree branch in a pot with gravel or some other weight
Buy or make a wooden Jesse tree ornament stand

What We Do: We bought a 5 foot tall fake tree with lights in a pretty pot from the local craft store when it was on sale a few years ago. Anything smaller doesn’t really hold all the ornaments well.

InspiredTraditions Jesse Tree Ornament Set and Devotional

Jesse Tree Treasures Ornament Set

Ornaments

Find free printable ornaments online and laminate them.
Make your own felt ornaments. This can be a great daily craft project for the kids.
Buy round wood ornaments and draw/paint them with the appropriate symbols
Buy a set of ornaments online

What We Do: We purchased the InspiredTraditions Jesse Tree Ornament Set and Devotion off Etsy. It’s the same set I recently did a giveaway for. There are also wonderful sets at Jesse Tree Treasures. They are so beautiful and well worth the one time cost considering the years of blessing!

Devotions

Find a free devotional online
Purchase a devotional with or without an ornament set
Make your own devotional by reading directly from your own or your child’s Bible for that day’s story

What We Do: For my personal devotions in the morning, I have used the devotional that came with my Inspired Traditions set as well as a Jesse Tree devotional written by Ann Voskamp. The kids have used pieces of both and this year I think we’ll correspond stories from The Jesus Storybook Bible to the ornaments as we go. We also may do simple crafts for some of the days.

More Ideas

DIY: Buy a felt tree decoration from the dollar store and attach printed, colored, and laminated ornaments with Velcro dots. That’s what we did before buying a tree and ornament set. (picture above)
DIY: The Reformed Church in America web site has great info about making the tree, printable ornaments, and ideas for making your own.
Purchase: In addition to the set we own, Inspired Traditions also sells a magnetic Jesse Tree set as well as a Family Project kit that people love.