Twelve Days, a Parker tradition where seniors perform the gifts that accompany the English Christmas carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” usually has the Morning Exercise slot on the Friday before Winter Break reserved. After a morning of classes, students fill the auditorium to watch the senior class perform their unique rendition of the carol. It has been this way for years, and 12 Days is a staple of senior year.

While the tradition may not go away, it will definitely look different from previous years. Senior grade heads Middle and Upper School music teacher Emma Castaldi and Upper School Spanish teacher Yadiner Sabir have made the decision that 12 Days this year will be a feature film with no live components.

“We were really excited last year to start this new tradition of ‘it’s going to be mostly live performances.’ Because it’s on stage, we want to see you live. We don’t want to watch a video,” Castaldi said. “So it’s funny this year we are reverting back to that. It’s all videos.”

Preparation for 12 Days begins with the grade heads sending a survey out to the seniors asking for people they’d like to be in an act with. There are 12 total acts, beginning with a Partridge in a Pear Tree and ending with Twelve Drummers Drumming. The grade heads sift through survey responses and make groups based on the responses. The process of making groups is layered, according to Castaldi, because they have to do their best to keep groups together and assign everyone an act that aligns with their number requests.

Additionally, there is an option for seniors to take on extra production roles. These include Director, Stage Manager, Choreographer, and new this year, Video Editor. The role of Video Editor entails helping edit each act’s video as well as assembling the entire film at the end. An added challenge for the role is the necessity of deadlines because if the seniors don’t get their acts in on time, they won’t be in the film.  

One of the Video Editors, senior Emily Simon, is excited to have been selected for the role. “It’s scary but exciting! Our entire class is super creative, and I know the production team will work really hard to make 12 Days feel as normal as possible,” Simon said. “Although it’s challenging, having the ability to do everything digitally will work to our advantage in creating a seamless production.”

Castaldi and Sabir are working closely with Upper School Dean of Student Life Joe Bruno to try and secure each 12 Days group a time to film part of their act in the building, whether that be in the auditorium or even just hallways. According to Bruno, there is a classroom currently set up on the stage that cannot be moved, so recording on the stage would be difficult. 

If the grade heads and Bruno got approval to use the building, all students would have to be masked the entire time. “If we are not able to take masks off, then for me, what is the point? ‘Do you want to film with masks on?’” Bruno said. “I think the answer would probably be no, but I could be wrong. We would not want to make that decision for seniors.”

If the seniors were allowed to film at school, it would likely be on a Friday afternoon through the evening, and would resume again on Saturday morning. If it is nice outside, the field or other outdoor spaces would be used. “This is all pending on what we get permission to do. So that is where we are right now,” Bruno said. 

It would be completely optional for seniors to film in the building. The grade heads and Bruno just want to provide the seniors with the best opportunities possible to make the performance special. “For me, and I know for them [grade heads] it’s important that everything is done through the lens of the seniors. This is about you [seniors],” Bruno said. “This is not about the three of us, so we want to make sure it’s what you [seniors] want.”

Once each group finishes filming their video, they send it to the Video Editors who assemble the acts into one movie. “Even the in-betweens with the characters like Santa Claus and Hanukkah Harry and what not, that will all be filmed,” Castaldi said. “So in the end, the performance is actually a feature film from start to finish. That’s the major difference.”

Unlike how MXs have been sent out this year, Castaldi wants there to be a scheduled advisory or MX time on the Friday that the 12 Days MX would usually happen. She thinks sending the video out in a link is less effective than having a scheduled time to view it, making sure the entire Parker community watches it. “We envision it to be exciting, different, extremely creative, and unlike any other 12 Days we have ever seen…” Bruno said. “We expect it to be special and meaningful, it will just look different.”