My heart is bursting to celebrate Christmas Day with each one of you! We have made it to our last few days of the Jesse Tree and it has been a joy to journey together recounting the faithfulness of our God.
I pray this week will be filled with all the savoring and reveling it can provide–this week is the home stretch–the victory lap…the amazing receiving of Christ being born to save YOU.
Rest in it. Enjoy it. Stand in awe of Him and His amazing grace and plan since the beginning to redeem you.
Relax in His love for you. Look with fresh eyes at all His gift allows you to experience. Live this week grateful.
For Christ has COME, dear friend.
Most of all, I pray this week is spent with Jesus and time with your family.
Here are our last three stories of the Jesse Tree and I want to wish you a very MERRY CHRISTMAS.
I really do mean that “Merry” in the most authentic, humbling, real, and deepest way I can mean it! For it has been a gift for me to know you this season and share in the joy of Christ together. I really do love you!
Christ is Born!
Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:11
Jesus is born! Woohoo! We made it to the BIG day!
Something that I started a few years ago was having my kids retell the Christmas story every year in their own words on this particular day. They also draw a nativity picture.
It has been so fun to look back and see what they said and how they drew (even though it has been only a short time)! I can’t wait to look through all their variations when they get older.
God’s Big Announcement
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them…” Luke 2: 8-9
Have you ever spent anytime around sheep or lambs? They are stinky! The Lord chose to reveal His coming first to the shepherds of those stinky sheep.
Find a way to spend some time at a petting zoo or live nativity and visit the sheep. Remind yourselves that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
And also consider the intentionality in God’s choice to make His glory known among the shepherds–who might have been considered the “least of these,” and yet God displayed His provision through declaring to them first that He was their GOOD shepherd and had brought salvation.
Jesus brought a new way of doing things.
Three Wise Men
When they saw the star they were overjoyed. Matthew 2:10
Christmas Eve can be a busy day preparing for church, maybe Christmas dinner, and tying up all the loose ends before Christmas Day. But it also is the last day of the Jesse Tree and a great day to do something very intentional to thank God for keeping His promise to you.
Just as God gave His son as a gift to us, I encourage you to give a gift to someone unexpectedly.
The mailman, your neighbor, the gas station clerk, your local fire station, the drive thru cashier–just a little something to bless them and give a gift to Jesus by spreading His love.
This is one of our favorite Christmas snacks and we have named it the “Wise Men” mix because it only has three ingredients just as the wise men gave three gifts: peanuts, raisins, and M&M’s!
We throw this simple mix together and give some bags of our Wise Men mix away.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS! Christmas Day!
Photo credit–Elizabeth Flanders Monaco
Don’t forget to give Jesus props on your Christmas Day celebrations! We usually make a birthday cake and sing Him Happy Birthday.
The kids always look forward to eating cake for breakfast and I love that we start off our Christmas Day with our focus on the true meaning.
I just want to thank you so much for joining the Jesse Tree Project this year and for those returning, we are so happy to have you a part of this community!
No matter what your month of December looked like–whether you finished the Jesse Tree doing most or all of the days–or you just jumped in and participated here or there–we can be confident of this: That His Word will not return void but accomplishes what He desires (Isaiah 55:11).
So we can trust seeds were planted and God is doing a good work in our children’s hearts just as He is in our own.
Christmas hugs and kisses to you and yours!
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