 Purdue Christmas Show is this big, extravagant event that we put on here at Purdue Musical Organization. It's such a unique show in the sense that we all come together. All of the ensembles come together and sing songs together and dance together. And it's a big thing that people have come for years for. We usually start planning the Christmas Show in January, so we have a planning meeting with our staff. We had a set design already sketched out prior to the pandemic. I remember the day that we got the official announcement that Christmas Show was going to be cancelled. So in March we were given that unfortunate news and then we kind of shifted our gears. So 87 years is a long time for one production to continue in a public university like ours. So we wanted to exhaust all possibilities of what was truly possible. But then we pivoted to the virtual idea. Well, the decision to move to this format for the Christmas Show really didn't happen until after we were told that we were going to be moving to more of a remote format going forward. And then we were able to go socially distanced with masks and face shields on and record the audio in lobe for our songs. And then partnering that with our videographer Gary Higgins and doing it outdoors. We weren't allowed to leave campus to do any of our taping. And then we removed the masks and everybody lip syncs to their audio track that they've already pre-recorded. It was cool to go somewhere else and be able to do the Christmas Show there. It was a lot of fun to be at iconic places on campus and to do those different things which is totally different than it's never been done before in a Christmas Show. We determined that the only safe way to do it was the way in which we are producing it. Safety was our number one concern for not only our staff, but our students of course. We're really grateful for the Protect Purdue Committee here who let us safely rehearse and perform. So we were trying our best to mitigate as much of those potential safety hazards as possible while still producing an amazing production. So we were able to practice our Christmas songs like outside. And so we have like these tents and stuff and we use face shields and singers masks and mic packs and all of this to make our rehearsals outside work. And then moving outdoors we still wanted to make sure we were socially distanced because we would be removing our masks. So between takes they would move the mask off and on. And we were in full costume and we were able to take our masks off if we lip sync. So it does feel different when you just hear the recording and you're trying to like act like you're singing that in the moment. And then they were able to pull together a click track. So it's literally a click that we would then be able to rehearse to so that when we would get into the recording of our audio for real. They would be able to follow that click track and it would be able to be partnered with our videographer and get the mouthing of them you know lip syncing to their own words. And it would match up nearly perfectly. Doing especially the express number that one is really dance heavy. And so us we were on the steps of hubby. We were just dancing and lip syncing of course. And people are just walking by like what are they doing. So we were really kind of inventing something along the way that I don't think anybody else is doing in order to produce something as big as this type of Christmas show. Meeting these challenges and being able to try new things where we maybe have gotten settled in a every year kind of is the same. And I think that's a kind of a refreshing frame of reference when you're going into a season when things don't seem to be what they used to be. You know doing classes at home and being stressed because things are just so different than what we're used to. Like the fact that we were still able to produce something like this I think should hopefully give people like an idea of like how strong we are here at Purdue. And how can you as an individual you can only control yourself how can you turn that around to being a positive instead of reflecting on it as a hardship. So it was a very different experience but it was still really cool. The number one takeaway for me is gratitude. Gratitude for our many many external partners who made this possible. We are very very fortunate to have such a loyal donor base here at PMO. They are entirely funding this production. It's 100% funded with donations. Everybody's coming together to try to make this particular production the best it can be. So all together about 300 students and then we've got some familiar Purdue faces that are going to be joining us to kind of help us weave in and out of some really interesting topics and some discussions about this time of year. At least for us we're happy that we got to be together and do something at least and I hope everyone gets to cherish it. When people see this next Christmas show everyone's going to know it's different it's not what we usually do. But this will be a fun way I think for people to experience the Christmas show together with everyone for the first time. So it's a little different but hopefully we were still able to like create the whole effect that people get when they see us in Elliott. To see the truly positive influence these students had not only in our staff but each other was really remarkable. You'll still get to watch it with your family and have like some holiday magic you know in your own home. I consider this our gift to the Purdue community and the greater community that we all represent which is a real privilege and honor to get to do that.