Winter Carnival Fun For All

The semester may only have started a couple weeks ago, but the Mary Washington campus is already hosting exciting festivities. The Underground Programming Council (UPC) hosted its annual Winter Carnival in Lee Hall on Friday evening, Jan. 27. The event – primarily publicized online through outlets like Facebook and Twitter – advertised the program as a place with “tons of free things to do!”

To be even more inviting, the event’s tag line was “Even the Grinch Wouldn’t Miss It!” The event attracted a high concentration of the student population, as evident by how little room there was to move in the nearly packed Lee Hall.

Winter Carnival took over the entirety of the building, from the top of the fourth floor to the Underground Cafe, not a single corner was left untouched by the celebrations.

The event started at 8 p.m. and was already swarming with students within the first five minutes. The promotional materials for the event mentioned free mugs (albeit in limited supply) would be handed out at the Carnival; unfortunately, those mugs vanished immediately during the events’ first ten minutes.

The absence of free mugs did not keep students away from the various opportunities that the evening offered.

Why settle for a mug when you can earn extra EagleOne money?

The Family Feud game-show, which took place in the Underground, allowed groups of four or five to form teams and compete against one another to answer questions, in which the winning team would win 10 dollars per person.

Bethany Apelquist, a Sophomore and one of the winners, said, “It is one of my greatest life accomplishments to date.”

When asked how she would spend the money, she responded, “I’m taking my winnings and going to Disney World.”

Students could also go upstairs for mini-golf mania and a skee-ball frenzy. If students made the last hole of the entire course, they would win five EagleOne dollars. For the poor college student in need of some extra cash, Winter Carnival was an ideal way to spend a Friday evening.

Fortunately, UPC made sure to include classic, child-like favorites at the event such as free desserts, temporary tattoos by the dozen, and personalized pictures on playing cards. Overall, the event proved to be one of UPC’s most successful yet and has raised expectations for their forthcoming programs.