When Express went caroling last year, senior Meg Ruocco said a young child in the audience mistook senior Austin Doughty for Harry Potter. Doughty was forced to continue performing, despite the child repeatedly saying, “Show us your scar, Harry!”

Express, an extracurricular choir, began preparing for its holiday performances in late October by holding rehearsals every day after school from 3 to 5:30 p.m. and memorizing the holiday carols. According to Express director Chad Davidson, the group members are expected to learn three songs per rehearsal, which he said is often challenging to new members.

Senior Christian Mergl said he was upset during his first year in Express when Davidson assigned three songs to be memorized for the following day’s rehearsal.

“I remember ‘Mo’az Tzur’ being one of the hardest songs to learn because it is entirely in Hebrew,” said Mergl. “When I finally got it, it felt great to know that I was officially ready for performance[s].”

Davidson said the returning members of Express are expected to provide guidance for the newer members when they are  learning the carols.

According to Ruocco, she advised the first year Express members to memorize the chorus of the carols first because the choruses are about half of the entire carol.

According to Davidson, the program lengths are apt to change for different performances, but if the group sang every carol it has learned, each performance would be around 105 minutes.

“Because the [Express] program is so extensive, we really couldn’t start from scratch every year,” said Davidson. “To keep things interesting and fresh, I’ll usually remove one [song] and add [a new song] each year.”

During the caroling season, Express is divided into two “carol groups” which consist of an equal amount of sopranos, altos, tenors and basses. Each group is led by two “carol leaders,” who are upperclassmen and returning members of the singing group. For every performance, the “carol leaders” choose the order of music, conduct the music and, if there is a soloist, choose who the soloist will be.

“Everything that [Express does] is really stressful during the month of November, but seeing a little kid getting excited about Christmas and getting excited about Santa Claus and stuff like that, it makes it all worth it,” Ruocco said.