This has to be one of my favorite times of year, the time of Advent. I love all of the biblical stories associated with the season, and as William gets older it is so much fun sharing them with him. We now have 2 advent traditions that our family plans on doing every year. Last year Nana gave us a book of 24 advent stories, one for each day in December up until Christmas Day, and we read them to William in the mornings. The book revolves around Benjamin Bear. He is impatiently waiting for Christmas, and to help the time pass, his mother tells him that every day when he opens a door on his Advent calendar she'll tell him a story. Each story is about another little bear and his long journey to Bethlehem. We just love it! We read it to him last year and have continued the readings this year.
Our second and new tradition is that of the Jesse Tree. William's Godmother, Shannon Robinson, made him a Jesse Tree this year and did such a GREAT job with it. It is SUCH a treasure to have. Shannon is so creative and always has her family do such neat and education activities, which we just LOVE! The Jesse Tree is basically a symbol of the family tree of Jesus. Jesse was the father of the great King David of the Old Testament. He is often looked upon as the first person in the genealogy of Jesus. At dinner time we read the passage of the day while Will colors a picture,usually revolving around the story we are reading, and then he gets to put the ornament of the day on his Jesse tree. We have the tree sitting on our kitchen table so we get to enjoy it at every meal.
We have been trying our hardest to do these two traditions every day in December, and even though some days were skipped, we always make sure they are read the next day or so. We do get through all of the stories, but some days have more stories than others ;-)
Hope you all are enjoying the season of advent as much as we are.
With love,
The Tates
Here are some pictures of our family enjoying our new advent traditions.
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