Students looking for live holiday music don’t have to look further than their cell phone. But they won’t need to open an app like Spotify or Apple Music. Instead, they’ll place a call.

The University Dial-A-Carol team will host its 56th annual event from Dec. 8 to Dec. 14. If a student calls the number, someone on the other end of the line will sing them a festive carol. Anyone from anywhere in the world can call and request a live rendition of a holiday tune.

Up until recently most callers received recordings of songs, but now every call is a live performance.

“What happened until a few years ago was that every fifth caller got a live singing of it, but the rest would just get Youtube videos or recordings,” said Rahmah Elmassry, the president of Snyder Hall Council and a junior in LAS. “The singing started to become really really fun, so we just did it all the time.”

Dial-A-Carol is a student-run holiday program hosted by students in Snyder Hall, a residence hall in the Ikenberry Commons. It was started in December 1960 by Betty Gordon, an area office secretary, and the residents of Snyder. The program runs 24 hours a day for seven days and is held each year during finals week of the first semester.

Elmassry said that a wide range of people use the service, including people from different parts of the world. Some even prefer to sing their own songs to the volunteers.

“I used to remember one, it’s like a group of patients in a hospital,” Elmassry said. “Some people liked to sing to us but not get songs sung to them. People (that call) from the countries that are not the US are also pretty interesting.”

Last year, the number of calls received was 16,354, which doubled the record set from last year. So, the team has prepared to accommodate an even larger number of calls this year.

“At this point in pre-planning, there are already 50 (singers). But once it starts, it would go up to eighty to a hundred people,” Elmassry said. “We usually get most calls from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. but it’s all-day actually.”

The team wants to spread some holiday cheer around campus during what is considered the most stressful time of the semester.

“I actually think it’s gonna be fun, especially it’s during finals week. It will give me time to release the stress from all the studying and just to enjoy the holiday,” Mariama Bah, a volunteer and freshman in LAS, said.

To receive a holiday carol, dial 217-332-1882 anytime during the event.

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