New Christmas Tradition

In our Truth in the Tinsel activities there was a link to an activity called "Joseph's Obstacle Course."  Basically, it was making an indoor obstacle course for your kid(s) and having them be Mary and Joseph travelling from Nazareth to Bethlehem.  I loved the idea, but didn't do it during whatever day it suggested.  Instead, it was our lead in to our family of three Christmas celebration.  I changed it to fit our lives and it was a big hit.  I've included the video, but it is 11 minutes long.  So, if you don't want to watch the video, here is a synopsis:

When Aria woke up from her nap, we went in her room and dressed her up as Mary.  We told her she was going on an adventure like Mary did with Joseph.  Then we followed the Christmas story and had different characters or objects to find in our house.  The angel was in the bathroom.  Joseph was in our bedroom.  The donkey was in the office.  She had to count some people like Mary and Joseph were counted.  Then she followed the "road" to Bethlehem, which was a string that went all throughout our house.  I wanted to highlight that it was a long, difficult journey so she had to climb over things, in things, and under things.  There were two "inns" in our basement that were full of people (stuffed animals on the beds) so there was no room for Mary and Joseph.  Finally, she came back upstairs, through a tunnel, and found the stable (a blanket fort) with baby Jesus in a manger.  We even hung a star from the ceiling above the stable.  We read the Christmas story as she travelled and it was a lot of fun!  I can see this become a tradition each year with the journey becoming more elaborate as her understanding of the story grows.  It was also nice to focus on Jesus, God's greatest gift, before we opened our own gifts, which we did after playing with the stable animals for awhile. :)  I didn't buy anything for the activity.  It took me about 20 minutes to set it up.  But the memory and the tradition started will last a lifetime.