“On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me…”

As the piano played, and the community sang, the senior class of 2018 was singing, dancing, and enjoying their time on stage as they presented the “Twelve Days” MX this morning to the Parker community.

“The 12 Days of Christmas” is a nursery rhyme that originated in 1780. When fully celebrated, the 12 days of Christmas begin on Christmas day, December 25, and end Jan 5. In modern times, most people celebrate only the first day of Christmas.

The Twelve days of Christmas, a traditional Parker Morning Ex that celebrates the beginning of the long-awaited winter break, is one Morning EX that freshman Julia Marks is always looking forward to. She said, “I always love the ‘12 Days’ MX.”

Student-run and organized, this Morning Ex is one that the seniors have been waiting to be a part of for many years now. “I have been going to school here since kindergarten,” senior and Twelve Days script editor Jack McNabola said, “so Twelve Days is something I think about every day, and it is cool to finally be performing in it.”

As the Parker community sang along to the catchy tune earlier today, some may not have been aware of all of the hard work that went into the show. “The preparation is crazy,” senior and Class President Talia Garg said prior to the performance. “You work on it for 29 days, and all of those days have to be filled with something.  It is going to be challenging, but we will figure it out.”

Garg was voted class president by her peers at the start of senior year, and one of her many tasks is to co–run “Twelve Days,” along with Jack Cordwell, the other class president. Excited to finally be performing in this show, Garg spoke about how challenging yet rewarding it was to be a part of the process.

On November 14 Garg and Cordwell began working with their grade on the MX. They sent out applications to seniors to run different parts of the show, and then they determined the best fit for each leadership role. The senior class’s 29-day countdown had officially begun.

Based on individual requests and interest levels in skits, Garg and Cordwell worked hard to put together groups that would make everyone happy. They put each group together with the intent of having friends work together in order to make the process fun and easy. “They put all the groups together like a puzzle,” senior Ray Blickstein said. “For the most part, it is friend groups doing skits together, which makes it not hard for people to want to spend time on their skit.”

After groups and skits were assigned, each group was to write their own entertaining–and appropriate–skit. “12 Days” is one MX that is performed for all grades, so a lot of work is put into making sure each skit is appropriate for all audiences. “As far as I know, no one got a list of things that you can and cannot say,” Blickstein said. “There will definitely be one or two problems with that, but no, there is nothing explicit that is given to us.”

By December 1, two and a half weeks prior to the show, seniors had to have turned in their scripts to McNabola, who then edited and checked for inappropriate content in each one. That weekend each group was tasked with working on their performance to have it ready for their first practice. “From Monday to Thursday, each group has to sign up for one time to either show their video or perform their skit in front of the 12 Days heads,” Blickstein said, “so that way we can make sure it is appropriate.” This year’s 12 Days MX heads were seniors Cordwell, Garg, Blickstein, McNabola, Grace Buono, Maya Sanghvi, and Jai Choudhary.

The next deadline the senior class had to meet was December 11. Blickstein said, “On that Monday the whole grade is doing a run-through of the entire show.” In the audience was a variety of grade heads and members of the administration. This viewing was set up with the goal of making sure the show was appropriate and funny.

After this run-through came a lot of anticipation and waiting for the show. “People care more about this tradition than others,” Blickstein said. “Students may not care about other traditions, but seniors are always excited for this.”