Jesse Tree

subtitled: How I am NOT a craft person.

Once upon a time, my dear husband saw an advertisement for a felt Jesse Tree. "We need such a great learning tradition in our house," he thought. Not only that, but we must share the wealth with some amazing God-children of ours. Surely their parents, too, will appreciate the unique, kid-friendly Advent tradition.

And so we quickly shipped the off to those poor, unsuspecting friends.

And then we opened ours. And we realized that this was not going to be a simple project. In fact, this was WAY more involved than this Mama, or that Daddy, tends to be artistically inclined towards.

The kit consisted of plain sheets of colored felt, and papers with diagrams and outlines. We then had to cut intricate shapes out of felt and glue different colors and shapes together to create the 29 various characters that tell the stories of the Messianic Prophesy.

I now feel I owe an apology to the mothers to whom we sent the kit. It's, uh, FUN! It was a great bonding moment!

No, really, it turned out great. My stars are lopsided. Adam and Eve have an arm defect. The parting of the Red Sea looks like blue moose antlers. And it was kinda fun after all. Just a fun, old-fashioned family event involving VERY sharp scissors and a large glass of wine.

My favorite part, of course, is now that it's done. It hangs right at the girls' eye level, and they are free to rearrange (Jesus keeps ending up in Mary's arms, how-cute-is-that!), touch (Anastasia, where did you put David's crown again?), and play with. Every day Bella brings me various pieces as asks me to tell the story of each one. She is learning a LOT of bible stories this way, and it's fun to be able to reference VeggieTales or recall the stories from their children's Bible. We even have a David song that we sing a lot.

In fact, despite the tedious work of the initial assembly, I have to say I really like it, and look forward to continuing the tradition each year.