The Jesse Tree: a journey through Salvation History

Plus some behind the scenes clips of the Christmas card artwork, a discount and some free goodies

It’s almost the beginning of Advent! I can’t quite believe it, although I think I find myself saying that every year. It comes up so quickly. In my last post, I talked about updating and adding to my Jesse Tree resources, which a lot of you have enjoyed in the home and classroom for the last couple of years. I ended up not only writing a booklet to go with the ornaments, but also altering the content of the tree slightly. The updated tree has the O Antiphons omitted (as beautiful as they are!) and more biblical figures instead. Some of the feedback I had was that children found the Antiphons to be a slightly confusing jump from the previous theme of the ornaments.

The new pack contains the updated ornaments (24 of them), the booklet (with a short synopsis and some reflection questions for each day, instructions and some mini black and white illustrated ornaments. These are great if you have a lot to print (maybe you’re a teacher and would like to send a set home with each child?!), can’t print in colour or have children who love colouring in. Get it here! It’s currently £5 for the whole downloadable pack. If you’re still not too swayed on the idea of a Jesse Tree, read on to discover more about the history of the concept.

The Value of the Jesse Tree

I think the Jesse Tree is one of my favourite Advent customs to enjoy as a family. It’s such an exciting and imaginative way to teach God’s plan of salvation, biblical literacy and the genealogy of Jesus. The idea of the Jesse Tree as a (fairly) modern Advent practice sprung from the traditional paintings depicting the genealogy of Jesus. These artworks depicted various biblical figures springing from the Stump of Jesse, forming a family tree. Genealogy and bloodline were extremely important in the middle ages - a much larger part of life than they are now; noble families would often have Jesse Tree tapestries or paintings on display in their homes to emphasise the royal lineage of Jesus. Later, the Jesse Tree concept was used to inspire family tree artwork.

In the latter half of the 20th Century, the idea of the Jesse Tree was picked up again and developed into the Advent practice we know and love today. Starting at Genesis, we discover the story of a different Bible character each day, from Abraham and Isaac to Esther and Daniel. This builds and culminates in the birth of the Messiah. If you do this each year, the stories of each figure will become easy to recall for your children and they might even remember specific scripture verses, too. Yes, some of the stories are pretty cool in their own right (for example, a young David defeating the giant Philistine warrior Goliath with just a slingshot and some rocks, plus his faith in God) but what they all teach is a confident reliance on the providence and power of God, plus the hope we have in Christ as Christians. This is such a great gift for your children!

If you have young children, there’s no need to start this tradition with the full readings and reflective questions. Play it by ear and maybe summarise the passages afterwards, depending on your child.

Christmas card behind the scenes

Lastly, I thought I’d show a little behind the scenes clip of how I made this year’s card. If you follow Tanglewood Atelier on Instagram, you might have seen this already but I know a lot of you don’t have social media.

Papercutting and collage, if you’re not wanting to make it too abstract and scruffy, can be painstaking work…think tweezers, pins, etc! This artwork took a total of about four days to make on and off. It incorporated analogue papercut work and digital additions, which is a fairly new practice for me. I usually keep the two separate, apart from hand painting specific backgrounds and textures for digital artwork. There’s something so satisfying about turning the raw artwork into more of a design.

The cards are currently on sale for this week only.

FREE Christmas embroidery download

This leads me to let you know about the free Christmas embroidery pattern I’ve made! It’s based on the same design and comes with brief instructions and suggestions for colours. I haven’t included instructions for basic stitches but these can be easily accessed online. An easy way to transfer a pattern to your fabric (if it’s a light-coloured fabric) is to tape the pattern to a bright window and trace it onto your fabric. Enjoy!

Christmas shop news and dates

Finally, just a quick shop update. I’m planning to have the Christmas shop open until 8th December only, so a week and a bit from now. If you have your eye on something, snap it up now! There are keyrings, pop-up Nativity scenes, cards, journals and more. Lots of things are running low.

I also, regrettably, have to make the decision to stop selling (hopefully temporarily) to customers in Northern Ireland and the EU from 8th December due to new GPSR regulations coming into force in mid December. They make it almost impossible for a small business to continue to sell without having to pay substantial fees to hire a ‘responsible person’ living within the EU. This doesn’t apply to digital products as far as I know and also doesn’t apply to original artwork. Sorry :(

I’m also offering free UK Royal Mail 48 delivery for all of this week. Just use the code ROSE24!

Emma x