Feb. 8 was Westwood High School’s second annual hall decorating day. Grades eight through 12 each had a designated movie to base their decorating on.

Westwood’s hall decorating started several years ago, but stopped for a few years after the class of 2008 graduated. But now, it’s back for its second consecutive year, and students, along with some teachers, are thrilled.

This year’s theme was movies. Class presidents from each grade drew a movie out of a hat in order to decide how they were going to decorate their hallway. The movies were “Toy Story,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Finding Nemo,” and “Up.”

The eighth grade class drew “Toy Story,” and decorated their lower gym hallway with cardboard cutouts of characters including Rex, Slinky Dog, Buzz Lightyear, the Barrel of Monkeys, Mr. Potato Head, and the aliens. To make it a little more personalized, they glued some teacher’s faces to the monkeys and hung them up on the wall. The aliens were next to a claw game, while the two Rex cutouts that stood on their own.

The freshman class had “Finding Nemo,” and they decorated the upper gym hallway with lots of blue paper, fish, pink streamer jellyfish, pelicans, and signs pointing to Wallaby Lane in Sydney, Australia.

The sophomores had “Up.” Creatively, they decorated the stairwell by the main office. There were many balloons, blue, clouds, and even the very loud and colorful, but loyal bird, Kevin. At the top of the stairwell, blue paper and white fuzz covered almost every piece of wall there was. Some of the fuzz even hung from the ceiling.

The juniors pulled “The Little Mermaid.” In their underwater-themed decorating of the overpass (maybe a little bit ironic), they used a lot of blue to make everyone feel like they were underwater. There was blue paint on the windows to give the feel that students were walking–or should I say, swimming–through the ocean. Even blue-colored plastic table cloths were draped over the lights, giving off a blue glow for those who passed through. Olivia Guerriero was Ariel, dressed to the part with a red wig and a mermaid tail. Other juniors dressed up as other “Little Mermaid” characters.

Lastly, the seniors had “The Wizard of Oz.” It seems to be a senior tradition that a senior boy dresses up as the leading female. This year, Jaren Harrison dressed up as Dorothy, following  in the footsteps of Class of 2012’s Ryan Ross, who, last year, dressed up as Grandma Nut for a Candyland-themed hallway.

Other costumed seniors included Matt McKay as the Scarecrow, Dana Aigotti as the Wicked Witch, Jimmy Lewis as the Tin Man, Luke Lyons as the Cowardly Lion, and Jessica Pellegrino as Glinda, the Good Witch.

The seniors decorated the library hallway with the many characters from The Wizard of Oz. Flying monkeys were suspended from the walls and a tornado hung from the ceiling. A lollipop forest was set up near a yellow brick road, and the lights were covered in green and brown tablecloths, giving students and faculty the feeling that they were not in Westwood anymore.

The hall decorating started slow for the seniors, but by the end of the night, they pulled it off. The seniors came in first place, the juniors came in second, the sophomores in third, the eighth graders in fourth, and the freshmen in fifth.