It was 2022 when the Nativity Scavenger Hunt first took shape—almost by accident. Term 4 had arrived in the first year Victorian schools were finally emerging from the long shadow of COVID. At Korowa, like everywhere, the staff were tired in a way that went deeper than simple end-of-year exhaustion. They had spent the year coaxing students back into the rhythms of face-to-face learning while navigating their own return to classrooms that suddenly felt both familiar and foreign. On top of that, Korowa was riding waves of leadership change; by Term 4, the school was welcoming its third Principal in a single year.
Each morning, as I walked into the staffroom, I could almost hear the weariness in people’s footsteps. It wasn’t just fatigue—it was the ache of three years’ worth of challenge, uncertainty, and constant adjustment. I found myself wondering: What could I possibly do to lift this wonderful, battle-worn group of people I cared so deeply about?
Then, in a passing conversation, someone mentioned “Elf on the Shelf”—and something sparked.
What if, I wondered, I created a scavenger hunt that invited staff into the wonder of the Nativity story—while also injecting some joy into the last two weeks of the year?
So I sat down and began to dream it up.
With the blessing of our newly arrived Principal, I launched the first Nativity Scavenger Hunt (which was a daily hunt for the baby Jesus) with very little expectation that anyone would actually play along. Version one was ambitious. Staff received a sneak peek at the clues by way of early-released Bible readings, breadcrumbs that would (hopefully) help them track down where the baby Jesus was hidden each day.
The next morning I arrived early to find a group of staff gathered around the staffroom table, poring over Bibles with the kind of focus usually reserved for reports and assessment week. I was a little flabbergasted.
When the first clue dropped, the hunt exploded into life. Teams formed across faculties and year levels. Those who taught early in the day teamed up with late-starters to keep the search going. The staffroom buzzed with the language of Scripture and riddles and gospel stories.
Students looked on in delighted disbelief as their teachers dug through the long-jump pit, dashed up staircases, or raced the lift to the rooftop courts. It created conversations—joyful ones—between staff and students about what on earth was happening and why.
What a gift it was to watch the staff come alive again: laughing, strategising, fiercely but playfully competitive—and all of it centred around the Nativity story.
From that moment, the Hunt became a Korowa tradition. Each year it shifts slightly—a new structure here, a different twist there. One year we even built the nativity scene piece by piece, adding each figurine to a stable on the staffroom table as it was discovered. But the Bible readings have always remained at the heart of the clues. And so, every year, in early December, the Bibles come out, and staff once again find themselves reading and rediscovering passages they may not have opened for some time.
This year, after feedback from our junior school staff—who often had the least time to chase clues amidst their jam-packed end-of-year program—the Hunt will run across the dedicated staff days. It’s been reimagined into a PowerPoint format where everything on each slide holds its own clue: both to what nativity piece they’re seeking and where it’s hiding. I’ve attached the PowerPoint for anyone who might want to give it a try; the final slide outlines how the version works this year.
What began simply as a way to bring laughter back into a weary staffroom has grown into something far richer: a cherished tradition that reliably brings joy, connection, and moments of wonder into one of the busiest times of the school year.
And for me?
In a world where Christmas can so easily be swallowed by the commercial and the chaotic, the Nativity Scavenger Hunt has become its own little gift from God—a glimpse of people delighting in the story of Christ’s birth often without even realising that they’re doing it. It is a bit of work, yes. But every year, without fail, it fills me with gratitude and quiet awe to watch staff—busy, tired, brilliant staff—genuinely engage with the message at the heart of Christmas.
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