New Blog

If you are doing the Jesse Tree, hooray for you! As you can see, I stopped doing this blog a long time ago, but I still love it and may come back and clean it out and start over. I just loved the name. But I was having a hard time finding time to write...

I am however, putting my Jesse Tree stuff on another blog and that is all it will be...

• Jesse Tree
• How we do Christmas Eve
• How we do Christmas Day
• What about presents???

If you do it differently, that's great...but if you are looking for ideas about how to keep Jesus' birthday and the presents thing separated, maybe this will spark your thinking to something even different than what we are doing...

I am mostly doing this so that if our kids want to continue this tradition that we started a few years ago, they will have a place to find it on the web.

But that will be it for this new blog. Unless I get some new Jesse Tree ideas...

And I will warn you that I have not been great about putting these every day. Why did I wait until the holidays to start posting these???

"I'll just post as I do them...that should be easy" I said to myself.

Sheesh....

So keep this site in case I get behind (again) but I am trying to get it all up here at the other one.

Thanks for reading...

Jesse Tree 20 21 22-Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph

Tonight we will spotlight Elizabeth

As someone who had a baby at 39, I love the story of Elizabeth...and Sarah...If course it's not the same, but they make me smile.

Here is her story...and here, where she does kind of a little praise/prophecy thing. And here, although it was in yesterday's story too, is the birth of her baby, etc.

We are eating

terriyaki, because it takes a long time to make before you actually eat it...(marinating overnight)

buns (like a bun in the oven)

mashed potatoes because sometimes when you are pregnant you can only stand white bland food.

and tootsie pops (a fun surprise inside:-))

The ornament is a grandma doll (like Polly Pocket size) with a baby rubberbanded on.
************
Saturday we will spotlight Mary

Foods for that day-
Hamburgers

Fries

Pop
(because they are teen foods and Mary was supposed to be about 14)

Angelfood cake (because God found favor with her)

The ornament is a lily.

The story is here. There is more, of course, but that's all we are doing today.
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Sunday we will spotlight Joseph

Sunday is also Christmas Eve and we always go to Chuck E Cheese or Incredible Pizza on that day. Kind of a kid party thing...for Jesus. Celebrating Christmas Day too, but it's different.

So we will do that for part of that day and then for dinner we will have

PBJ circle sandwiches (I have a Pampered Chef item that does this, but you can also buy those frozen ones).

And BLTs because bacon kind of looks like a ruler which one might use in carpentry.

We also eat those honey BBQ corkscrew looking fritos...because they look like a screw.

And those big pretzel rods dipped in chocolate.

The story is here

And the ornament that we use is a ruler.

We pretty much end our Jesse Tree here...we are either usually out of town and this year, since we are going to be home, we are going to try something new. I am envisioning something like the Amazing Race, where at certain points of the story we will play a game, sing a song etc. I'll let you know how it works out.

Thursday Thirteen #20 AND Jesse Tree #20 Zachariah

Kind of funny coincidence that the 20th day of our Jesse Tree would fall on my 20th Thursday Thirteen.





Thirteen Things about Jesse Tree #20 Zachariah



1. Today we start the New Testament folks for our Jesse Tree, beginning with Zachariah.

2. Zachariah was a priest.

3. He was married to Elizabeth and they were both old.

4. They didn't have any children, which was a big deal, but they had kind of made peace with it, since there was basically no chance of having kids at this stage of life.

5. Zachariah one turn in life to go into the Holy of Holies to take care of the incense and whatever other things need doing in there was on this day (in the story) . It was probably the high point of his life as a priest.

6. He went into the chamber, and was focusing on the tasks he had to perform, when an angel appeared.

7. Gabriel (the angel) said, (as angels do in the Bible) "Don't be afraid." Seems that they always have to say that. Sometimes they don't say it and I guess those people are supposed to be afraid, like here.

8.He told Zachariah and he (Zachariah) and Elizabeth were going to have a baby and name him John, but Zachariah didn't believe it.

9. So, as a sign, Zachariah was unable to speak until John was born.

10 For the Jesse Tree, we use a pad a pencil for the ornament, because Zachariah was unable to speak.

11. We are using multicolored jello squares for the ephod, which is fancy breastplate that the priests wore.

12. And corn dogs (beef:-)), because of the oil in the temple (since you have to fry them).

13. And Laffy Taffy for the dessert, since it is hard to talk with it in your mouth.

Tomorrow is Elizabeth...thanks for stopping by.:-)



Links to other Thursday Thirteens!





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Jesse Tree #19-Ezekiel

Focusing on Ezekiel today...Not the part about "Ezekiel saw de wheel" although that will be part of the clue as to who this is (did I ever say that I usually make the kids guess who it is based on elements in the dinner?)

So tonight we are having

Wagonwheel pasta (which they do NOT have at my Walmart and I had to go to Albertson's to get it)

Smoked Sausage cut into wheels

(no dry bones)

green beans

popovers (for the story) (nothing inside)

cotton candy (for the story) (because it vanishes when it hits your tongue)

Our story is based on Ezekiel 10, where the glory of God leaves the temple.

Here is some additional info from Early Jewish Writings

In a vision dated to 592 B.C.E., Ezekiel was transported back to the temple in Jerusalem. There he witnessed a variety of improper activities. The religious leaders of Jerusalem were secretly worshiping foreign gods in the temple compound. Women were devoted to Tammuz, the Babylonian fertility god. These activities were an outrage to Yahweh. In consequence, he got up to leave the temple. Ezekiel's description of Yahweh's departure utilizes the throne-chariot imagery of chapter 1. The "glory of Yahweh" mounted the cherub-powered vehicle.
In stages Yahweh exited the temple, stopping at certain points, including the threshold of the temple and the east gate of the courtyard, as if reluctant to leave.
Hovering over Jerusalem, then over the Mount of Olives east of the city, finally Yahweh was gone. The people had driven away Yahweh by their corrupt practices. He would no longer be there to protect them, and they would be taken into captivity.
This is the message that Ezekiel brought to the exiles: Jerusalem would fall, as punishment from Yahweh.

Sad, but it kind of paves the way for the birth of Jesus.

Ornament for today will be a "cloud" which represents the glory of God.

Duh and Jesse Tree #18 Jeremiah

Well....forgot to say that Isaiah also prophesied about Jesus' birth and here.

OK, sorry about that...can't believe I did it.

Today we are studying Jeremiah the prophet. We have a little bottle of salt water because he was called the Weeping Prophet.

We have an arch book that talks about him called, Jeremiah and the Fall of Jerusalem and the Bible story can be found here, here, here, here and here. I am not sure why we do Jeremiah, except that our original Jesse Tree had him. He is great and all, but so is Elisha and we don't have anything about him. May rethink that one...anyway, this year, it stands.

For our dinner, we are having...

donuts because they represent the hole that he was thrown into

sausage...because I had a different idea that involved sausage and then came up with the donuts, so that is where we are with it.

May make scrambled eggs as well, to signify the destruction of which Jeremiah prophesied.

Popcorn for dessert...salty. tears...

Tomorrow is Ezekial...and that will be the last story before we get to the regular Nativity story.

Thanks for reading and enjoy!

Jesse Tree #17 Isaiah

We are doing Isaiah today...he prophesied about Jesus' death and probably some other things...I need to do a study on him sometime....but not today.

For our food (and we are thinking orange for the burning coal, things that are hot, etc)

Sweet and Sour Chicken...has that orange sauce, carrot coins...white rice, which could be purity
Hot fudge cake (hot)

My kids will never guess it based on that stuff, but so many of these stories have to do with fire...and I am not allowed to run the grill by myself:-)

For the dessert, one could also do chocolate cupcakes with orange frosting, or if you reeeeeeaaaaaallllllyyyyy think ahead, you could save the Oreos from halloween and use them. But we love hot fudge cake at our house so there you go. Just the Pillsbury one, or I think Betty Crocker has one, too.

For the ornament, we just took (surprise) a charcoal and painted it orange.

Here is the passage we will be using...and this one is the prophecy about Jesus. I know it's kind of heavy, but we still use it. It's kind of amazing to think of Isaiah saying all of that so far away from when it really happened.

Jesse Tree #15 The Fiery Furnace

No mistake on the numbering...I missed yesterday...stink. My friend, Hester, had her baby and I was running some errands toward that end. The baby was 3 pounds 8 ounces and looks beautiful...:-)

If you read Thursday's post, I put a little bit there for it...

Moving forward...

Today is Shadrach, Meshach and Abdnego. I love yesterday's story about Elijah and the prophets of Baal and I love this one too...soooo dramatic!

So this is what we are eating...

hamburgers and 1 steak (for the surprise...like the king was surprised when he saw the Fourth Man) My kids like hamburgers but they love steak so that will be fun.

Mashed potatoes in a hill for the furnace.

salad...just because.

Now for the dessert...I found some bags kind of like grab bags at Albertson's a couple of weeks ago...with their single candy items...don't really know what is in there (hopefully no vampire teeth or witch's nose or whatever...) but again, the act of looking in and being surprised...there is supposed to be candy in there too...

If you can't get those, you could do funnel cakes or fireballs or hot tamales...just something physically hot or hot tasting.

We have a little film canister that we glued wooden matches around for our ornament.

Here is the story. You could also watch The Veggie Tale version, which we may...

PLANNING to be here tomorrow. The story is Daniel and the Lion's Den.

We are having slices of ham with Mac and Cheese around the perimeter (squint your eyes and it might look like a lion:-))...and mixed vegetables...fruit rollups with the tattoos on them for the writing on the wall (That was actually before the lion's den incident, but I love that story) and the story is here in case I am not.