Winter Wonderland is the winter dance at Garden City High School. The dance used to be a big deal among students who went all out with their hair, dresses, limos, and everything else. A few years ago changes began to be made to the dance. The grades allowed to attend were split with Spring Fling. Freshman and sophomores attend Spring Fling, and juniors and seniors went to Winter Wonderland. However, you were allowed to attend in any grade so long as your date was someone in either grade for that dance. Dates from outside of Garden City High School were also allowed to attend as long as a permission slip was signed by both sets of parents.

For this year many aspects of the dance were changed, in reaction to a few students getting in trouble for breaking various rules at last years dance. The dance had always been held on a Saturday and this year it will be on a Friday. The day after are the ACTs, which would exclude many people from being allowed to go to anyway. No longer are tickets being sold in sets of two to couples; now there are only single tickets. Another changed rule is transportation. To get to Spring Fling students must be driven by parents, however, in the past for Winter Wonderland students were allowed to arrive in limos and party buses. This year students can be driven by parents or drive themselves, which is the recommended way to get there. But absolutely no limos or party buses would be allowed to bring students to or from the dance. As can be expected because of all the rule changes rumors also began to circulate about more changes that would be made, like the lights staying on the entire time, and the dance being video taped. From what I have heard, both of those rumors are false.

Personally, I am not going to the dance. Of the people I have talked to most of them aren't going either. The students aren't happy with the new rules and I think that's very understandable. Having the dance that seniors attend the night before a major college entrance exam seems very strange to me. I think it's unfortunate that such a long tradition has to have this kind of outcome but that seems to be what's going on. I wonder what will happen in the future but I have a feeling the fate of Winter Wonderland is grim.