The movie “Grease” holds a huge amount of magic for so many people my age; there’s just “something” about a movie about teenagers in the 1950’s that came out in the 1970’s and is still fun to watch today. One of my favorite parts was always the finale, in which the boy gets the girl and everything is tied up in a neat little package. As I became a teenager myself, I became cynical of the setting in the last scene*: I mean, what school DOES THAT for its graduating seniors?
And then, of course, there was “Grease 2”, the movie which Michelle Pfeiffer always seemed to forget to list on her resume of movie credits for some reason. (Come on Michelle! Sure, you’ve acted better in other movies, but this one is still a classic!) In many ways, I enjoy “Grease 2” better than the original. Though my favorite part is this one and my second favorite part is this one, (Okay, and I love this part too**.) this movie also has a fabulously elaborate and slightly unbelievable end-of-school celebration for the graduating seniors.
I learned this weekend that not only are senior celebrations like these possible, but they ARE being done. Last night, Jim, the younger boy and I went to the high school to check out the older boy’s senior celebration before the students were allowed in, and we were blown away by the scope, size, and attention to detail. Senior parents volunteer every year to put this together (the students are not involved in the set-up at all; it’s FOR them), and they turn our high school into a cruise ship for an overnight lock-in that lasts from 10:00 p.m. until 5:00 a.m. There are crafts, movies, a DJ, hair and nail services, contests, raffles, games, food…seven hours of supervised craziness.
Did I mention that we were blown away? The school didn’t even look like a school. It was magical. I took more than sixty photos; here are four of them (If you have a few minutes, click here for the whole slide show; I labeled the photos over there.):
He returned home early this morning and, of course, went right to bed. I can’t wait to hear all about it.
All in all, it’s so exciting to know that an end-of-year senior celebration of this scale doesn’t only occur on a California movie set!
*As well as the movie studio trying to pass off actors who were clearly in their mid-to-late twenties as teens, but that’s another post.
**SHUT UP. I love this movie.
©2010 Suburban Scrawl
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I love this kind of celebration. Our kids' school has a similar (not as elaborate, wow!) event after graduation.
I hope everyone had a huge time!
Wow! Pretty cool. Looks like your High School is full of talented parents and very lucky kids. Sure the party made a big splash!
Awww! How cool! We did themed lock-ins for every grade at our high school– I loved ours! I can't wait to hear what your son thought about the whole thing 🙂
Wow, I didn't think any schools did that! Mine sure didn't and I graduated just 6 years ago. Your boys are very lucky to have such a great school!
Awesome photos. I think it's great for any school that has the booster club funds and parents to volunteer to make things like this happen. I think it's well deserved after 4 hard years of HS.
Holy cow-Your year ends early! What a wonderful night they must have had.
Thanks for posting this; it made me realize I didn't have any of Kyle's end-of-the-year event dates (like awards night, graduation, haha) on my calendar. So now, we're up to DATE. 🙂
That's truly amazing! Rebekah would be SO jealous, lol.
*snicker* *snicker* *giggle*
Ahem.
That is so way cool! I love it. I have a feeling that our high school probably does something similar, but obviously I'm not there yet. So should I assume you weren't part of the volunteering parents? Shame on you 😉
That looks like one really cool party! I had no idea that schools did these types of things.
That SO ridiculously awesome!
PS. I could've guessed without even reading this that you covet all that is Grease 🙂
I love Grease and I LOVE LOVE LOVE Grease 2 even more! I even bought it at Walmart last summer for $5!
Cool Rider is my favorite scene and the Girl for All Seasons song.
I heart you Melisa! Now there are two of us who love this movie. My sister makes fun of me all the time. I'm emailing her your post right now! 🙂
I can't believe the school goes all out. It's great! I hope he enjoyed it! 🙂
That's amazing!! I had no idea that this actually happened in real life LOL
Fun! That almost makes me wish I was in high school again. Almost.
Seriously? You liked Grease 2 better than Grease? Hmmm, I will try to get over that.
Very cool looking HS party!I hope the parents coordinated a group dance scene too 🙂
Holy Hannah!!!! That is AMAZING!!!
That looks soooo fun!
I too am a Grease fan and just recently found out that it was originally written to take place in Chicago! (You probably already knew this.) American Theatre Company is producing it in the next year and they are working with the playwright to take it back to his original, grittier, Chicago version. And a good friend of mine is in it. Super excited! I'll keep you posted in case you want to make a field trip to Chicago for some theatre.