We Wait for the Lord: Another Jesse Tree

You want Advent to feel like what it is — a holy season of waiting and preparation. But the world around you is already celebrating, and the familiar Jesse Tree stories you have read together before no longer grab your children’s attention or invite them into this sacred season. The Church gives us four weeks to slow down, to wait, to prepare, but if you are honest, even you have a hard time entering the waiting when everything around you is already celebrating. You have tried the Jesse Tree before, and you know it is beautiful, but familiarity has a way of dulling wonder. You find yourself reading aloud to glazed eyes...until your family drifts away from the study...and from Advent altogether.