Avery Davis
Staff Writer
@avery2018

Many people are familiar with the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” The Christmas carol that has been sung for many years has become a staple on holiday playlists around the world.

But it is a rare experience to get to see the song brought to life in front of the 12 houses on Bay Circle, a small street off of Parkway. The first house’s sign depicts a partridge sitting in a pear tree, the second an image of two turtle doves. The rest of the houses continue the pattern, each lawn displaying an additional line of the song.

The neighborhood tradition began when residents of Bay Circle saw a correlation between the number of houses lining the street and the number of days of Christmas listed in the carol.

“My next door neighbors and I started it,” said Ann Curtis, Bay Circle resident of 24 years. “We had 12 houses on the street, and it just seemed to be appropriate. I had a little book that had the characters [of the song] in it, and the artist who made the signs copied the book.”

Others have lived there nearly as long, arriving just as the signs started to appear.

“[We’ve lived here] almost 22 years,” resident Cathy Perschbacher said. “The person who started the tradition doesn’t live here anymore. The year we moved into the house was the first year they did it. So we’ve been in it since the very beginning.”

Newer neighbors have not had trouble being accepted into the festive holiday culture of the street.

“We’ve been doing this as long as we’ve lived here; we’ve lived here four years. Pretty much everyone participates,” Coppell High School freshman Rupen Mikaelyan said.

Some of the signs have been lost along the way, especially when a house switches ownership. Considering the number of chances for the signs to be misplaced or damaged, it is incredible that all but one of the signs reappear annually after years of use.

“The reason that one sign on the street is different is because when the house got sold, people came in and cleaned it out and didn’t know that they threw the sign away,” Perschbacher said. “A new sign was made, but it doesn’t match the others.”

After 22 years of the “Twelve Days of Christmas” circle, some of the original residents have moved away and new neighbors have replaced them. So far, there has been surprisingly little negativity towards the holiday signs.

“We’ve been pretty lucky,” Perschbacher said. “We’ve had [a neighbor move in who did not want to put up a sign], and they said that they didn’t like commercializing Christmas. So we asked for their sign and put it up in another neighbor’s yard so it was [as if] it was still there. The next year they actually asked for the sign. I think they realized what a tradition and what a big deal it was to us.”

Her husband, Donald Perschbacher, agrees that the majority of people living on their street have been open to the idea of the signs.

“Regardless of what they believe, people just think it is fun to do for Christmas with their neighbors,” Mr. Perschbacher said.

Both Curtis and Mrs. Perschbacher told a story of a car they had seen earlier that day, driving back and forth through their street and stopping at every house. Concerned, Perschbacher decided to go outside and make sure everything was alright.

“I open the door, and the car is in front of our house so I said ‘Can I help you?’ and the lady said ‘No, he’s just making me drive back and forth up and down the street to every house,’” Perschbacher said. “And I look, and there’s a little boy in her car. She said he was her 4-year-old nephew and that he knew every word to the song. She said that he came last year from New York, when he was three and he remembered this street and wanted to come back here. And she thanked us for doing it. it is also fun because sometimes if you’re out there you get to hear people singing. That’s always fun – to see people getting into the Christmas spirit and enjoying it.”

Donald Perschbacher had only positive things to say as well.

“We get a lot of people that drive by, and if we’re out, they talk to us about how much fun it is to see, and that kind of stuff,” Mr. Perschbacher said. “Just the fact that we get to share it with people is fun.”