God With Us: A Family Advent Celebration

This is only the book. No ornaments. The images are very misleading, it seems like we're getting the ornaments too. Why would I only want a PICTURE of an ornament??

I love this book! This has become a new family Tradition for us now! The book has bright colors and explains the story of Jesus from the beginning of creation. Each day we are given a one page explanation of one idea about the leading up to Christ's birth.Some people call it Advent and some the Jesse Tree.My family bought some wooden sliced round ornaments (also from Amazon) and we chose to spend an evening decorating the ornament to look similar to the felt image ornaments in this book.What I found an extra bonus, is the back of this book contains every design printed in a group of twenty five.. so, if you did not want to make or buy your own ornaments, you could very easily cut out the designs from the pages in the back, laminate them, hole punch them and add them to your own Christmas tree or what you chose for a small cost (price of laminating and some thing to tie them with such as ornament hooks or even yarn would work perfectly) ... however, we chose to do a fun wooden ornament art project for family fun.You can also make the ornaments out of felt, clay or even order some already made.The author describes each themed day very simplistic and does not go on and on which is great when you are trying to include every member of the family and keep little children's attention.At the end of each page, there are questions to ask the family and even ideas for some fun art!I highly suggest this book and feel it's a great reminder of the true reason for Christmas. It's a great asset for family bonding and just beautiful written and we'll thought out!We even plan to speak about it on our vlog!

This is by far my favorite Advent devotional. There are many out there of course, but the simplicity and meaningfulness of this makes it a winner. The devotionals are short, Gosple/Bible centered, include verses (nice for especially busy days), questions for further discussion and a prayer. Plus the photos of her handmade felt ornaments make it feel like an old family tradition—love it! We printed out her ornaments from her Etsy site and laminated them for our Jesse tree; my kids like this a lot!

This Advent book has been such a joy to read each evening! I had my grandma paint ornaments out of wood circles to use. I’m not sure why people who have left low reviews are upset that it didn’t come with ornaments. No where does it state that it comes with them. There are pictures located in the back of the book where you can easily cut out and laminate them, but you would have to do a “little” work. Overall, the book is simple, the questions are great discussion points for children and families, and I love that the book references the appropriate verses to each advent devotion. We will be purchasing another one as our book has been well loved already in our first year using it. We currently have four Littles (4.5, 2.5, 14 months, and a babe in the womb)! Highly recommend this advent book!!I provided a picture of the ornaments my grandma painted! As well as a picture of the paper ornaments in the book you could use as your own!

I searched for about a month to find the perfect Advent book, and this is the best one I found. I think it's probably the best one out there.Some books I found were too deep theologically, or overly verbose. Some books had black & white sketches or no pictures at all. Mostly, it seemed like all of the other books took a LOT of liberty with the stories; they just seemed like good, historical fiction.In contrast, this book has large, beautiful, full-color photographs and concise, true descriptions of what the Jesse Tree advent images actually mean. This book has the sentimental look/quality of being handmade. It was engaging for the children (ages 4 through 14) who were with us, and I also appreciated its authenticity. I look forward to it being a family tradition!

I am so excited to read through this with my kids (ages 9, 7, 5, 2, 1) this December! My nine year old daughter is making clay ornaments to correspond with each day's reading. I read through over half of the readings and Katie does an excellent job of writing in an easy to understand way, yet very biblical and getting to the heart of each Bible passage. Her writing is very sound as well. Thank you Katie for making this book. The front cover is ADORABLE and I think it's worth the steep $20 pricetag.

This has been the best Jesse Tree book we have found. The theology is sound, the devotionals are simple (but still full of truth), the prayers are short and the extra "Branching Out" section is full of good ideas for activities and discussion points. Even our 2 year old makes it through the devotional without squirming and is able to participate. Every devotional has a full-page picture of the felt ornaments , which makes it very easy to recreate them with some felt, yarn and embroidery floss. Excellent advent devotional for the entire family!

I purchased this book to use for Advent with my 3, 5 and 7 year old children. The photos in the book are gorgeous (full page photo for each ornament), the scriptures, story and "branching out" discussion questions are all right on track for what I wanted to do with my kiddos. There is also a list of each scripture in the back of the book along with photos of each ornament you could cut out to hang on a tree to display. I can see us using this for multiple years. Great product!

Best advent purchase EVER!!!So many activities come from these stories! Love the emblems. Check out the authors website for added bonuses and products that go along with the book!