School Christmas concerts turning virtual

Last year, many kids weren’t even in class because of COVID-19, so Christmas and holiday concerts were a no-go.

But this year, many schools are looking to bring that tradition back, albeit virtually.

At St. Gregory School in Regina, when the decision came down from the school division to have a Christmas concert, vice-principal Carmel Nicholson took out a script from a concert she’d done before that, for this situation, would work perfectly.

“The script was called ‘www.Christmas.com.’ And the premise behind it is that a group of students have been given a last-minute Christmas project they have to do where they have to find what the true meaning of Christmas is all about,” explained Nicholson.

Each class then came up with songs, dances or skits, filed into the library where a stage was built and performed them in front of a camera.

“We wanted it to be different so we said, ‘All you have to do is find what works best for your class, practise what works best for your class and then we’ll make it fit into the whole Christmas concert theme,’ ” Nicholson said.

Then five of the main student actors recorded their parts as the kids doing the project, and when they found something online, they would click on a “link” and it goes to one of the performances.

Nicholson said everyone has been excited about the concert. She talked about one day when she and the office manager were walking down the hallway and heard some of the kids practising.

“She kind of peeked her head in and I was listening too, and we came back to the office and we both had tears in our eyes because we were like, ‘This is what we’ve missed about Christmas,’ ” said Nicholson.

Even the kids had been looking forward to it.

“They knew they were being recorded so a lot of them had little costumes they brought to school or they dressed up, and so they were extremely excited,” said Nicholson.

Even though the concert is virtual, Nicholson said it has helped things feel a bit more normal.

“(It) kind of brings us back into reality that we move on and life goes on and you just make it work with the COVID protocols in place, like the students wore their masks while they sang and they made sure that they were following what we needed to follow,” said Nicholson.

Last year, Nicholson said the school did a virtual night around family cooking instead of a concert.

The video was cut together on the weekend, and Nicholson said it’s being sent out this week.