You’ve been to a carnival before right? performers and ferris wheels and fortune tellers and machines that turn you into grown ups? None of those things have anything to do with our Middlebury’s Winter Carnival.

Middlebury Carnival—which an email I just received tells me is in its 88th year—is the Middlebury Ski Team’s one home weekend of the year. Everyone loves Winter Carnival mostly because there is no school on Friday. L  o  n  g  W  e  e  k  e  n  d. Aside from the ski races there are also all sorts of activities happening on campus, like a performance by an 80s cover band that has come each of the last 88 years—no really get it? like an 1880’s cover band? Nailed it. There is also a snow sculpture contest in the quad, a Winter Carnival Ball, and new for this year Winter Carnival King and Queen (gender neutral). Its like homecoming in the winter except better because we get a long weekend and no one gets any work done.