The Jesse Tree

A shoot shall sprout from the root of Jesse

and from his roots a bud shall blossom

                                                                            Isaiah 11:10

The Jesse Tree is one of those Advent traditions that I was not familiar with until recently. There was some degree of mystery surrounding the concept for me since I had never seen one up close or participated in the tradition. For years, I really wanted to understand do with this with my children but it took until last year for the idea to finally click for us.

The Jesse Tree, simply put, is a tangible way to explore the family tree of Jesus and a retelling of Salvation History through Old Testaments events. Named for Jesse, the father of King David and ancestor of Jesus, the Jesse Tree focuses each day of Advent on a different person or event that came before Christ and foretold the story of the redemption of mankind. A symbol is used to represent that figure or event or title of Jesus and is made into an ornament to place on a "tree" of some sort (more on that below) which over the course of Advent becomes a "tree of life" of sorts to display. I never realized how little I knew and understood of the Old Testament until we made the Jesse Tree part of our family Advent traditions.

A quick perusal of the intertubes will reveal that there are a host of ways to "do" a Jesse tree. This was my first roadblock in figuring out this tradition. Additionally, since the length of Advent varies from year to year, there is a good deal of variance in the number of symbols to use. And to further complicate things, there seems to be a good deal of variance regarding which symbols to use and even which figures or events make the cut for their role in Salvation History.

What to do?

Now to be fair, some sites try to make it simple by offering printable images (seen hanging in the first picture of this post) for you to cut out while others offer tutorials for making your own. But to be honest, some of the images and symbols were fine, others kind of cheesy. Other sites instruct you to mount your images on a poster board or sheet of felt while other families hang the ornaments on a random tree branch from their backyard.

My brain couldn't handle all the various options so we streamlined it all by settling on a finite number of symbols to use each year regardless of the number of days of Advent and selected a hard and fast calendar start date to begin each year. For us, that means we will always begin our Jesse Tree on December 1 and use the same 24 symbols from year to year. A little research and reading other blogs helped me decide upon the following common Jesse Tree symbols which were easy to represent as a drawn image on balsam wood shapes found at Hobby Lobby. (I may color these in one day, but for now, these will do.)


Dec. 1--Creation; symbol: earth
(Genesis 1:1-31, 2:1-4)

Dec. 2--Adam and Eve; symbol: man and woman
(Genesis 2:7-9 & 18-24)

Dec. 3--The Fall of Man; symbol: apple with snake
(Genesis 3:1-7 & 23-24)

Dec. 4--Noah; symbol: ark with rainbow
(Genesis 6:5-8 & 13-22; 7:17,23,24; 8:1, 6-22)

Dec. 5--Abraham; symbol: stars
(Genesis 12:1-9; 15:1-6)

Dec. 6--Isaac; symbol: ram
(Genesis 22:1-14)

Dec. 7--Jacob; symbol: ladder
(Genesis 25:21-34; 28:10-15)

Dec. 8--Joseph; symbol: coat of many colors
(Genesis 37:23-28; 45:3-15)

Dec. 9--Moses; symbol: Ten Commandments
(Exodus 2:1-10)

Dec. 10--Samuel; symbol: horn of oil
(1 Samuel 3:1-18)

Dec. 11--David; symbol: slingshot with stones
(1 Samuel 17:40-50)

Dec. 12--Solomon; symbol: Temple of Jerusalem
(1 Kings 6:11-14, 16, 19)

Dec. 13--Isaiah; symbol: tongs with burning ember
(Isaiah 6:1-9)

Dec. 14--St. Joseph; symbol: carpenter's tools
(Matthew 1:18-25)

Dec. 15--Mary; symbol: lily, Immaculate Heart
(Luke 1:26-38)

Dec. 16--St. John the Baptist; symbol: shell and water
(Mark 1:1-8)

Dec. 17--Wisdom; symbol: Holy Spirit, scroll
(Wisdom 8:1)

Dec. 18-Lord of Lords; symbol: burning bush, stone tablets
(Exodus 20:1-2)

Dec. 19--Root of Jesse; root with flowering stem
(Isaiah 11:1-3)

Dec. 20--Key of David; symbol: key
(Isaiah 22:22)

Dec. 21--Radiant Dawn; symbol: sunrise
(Isaiah 41:25-26)

Dec. 22--King of the Gentiles; symbol: crown
(Ephesians 2:14-20)

Dec. 23--Emmanuel; symbol: the Eucharist
(Isaiah 7:14)

Dec. 24--Nativity; symbol: manger
(Luke 2:1-20)

The last 8 are titles of the Redeemer as He was called throughout the Old Testament and are otherwise known as the O Antiphons. These dovetail in nicely with our O Antiphon House.

We "do" our Jesse Tree just before bed, after family nighttime prayer. The boys alternate finding and hanging the correct ornament and we read a (very) brief scriptural reference from the bible which I have written on the back of each.

We might discuss it briefly or have the boys tell us what they know of the story. And that's pretty much it!

This year, we found a book at the library to use with our Jesse Tree and though it doesn't match up perfectly with the symbols we use on any given day, it's a beautiful story and lends itself nicely to the tradition.

Whether or not you implement the Jesse Tree in your family traditions, I hope you are off to a wonderful Advent. And as my husband was eager to say this morning...

Happy Liturgical New Year!!!