My Christmas Memory, 2002, by Elizabeth Zarantonello

From MemoryArchive

Who: Elizabeth Zarantonello
What: Christmas
When: 2002
Where: My house

One of my fondest Christmas memories was spent with one of my best friends, Violet Downs. Every year around Christmas time I have Violet over several times to spend the night. We would go sledding and explore the woods of the vast forest that surrounds my house. One year when we were in the sixth grade we woke up early and headed outside for the day. As we were walking down my driveway something caught our eye. It was my father’s pond with a sheet of glassy ice covering it. We went over to see how thick the ice was. I stepped on the slippery ice and suddenly my shoe had submerged with icy cold water. We quickly ran back up to the house to change my shoes. After we had gotten some hot chocolate we returned to the pond. We were looking at the hole I had fell in when we saw something swim by. At first we had no idea what it was, when another swam by. It was a tadpole. Then Violet had a brilliant idea. We should save the tadpoles from the cold icy waters. We quickly ran to my shed and found the biggest saucer we could find. When we got back to the pond we knew we had to work fast for the day was almost done and it was growing colder. I grabbed a rock and threw the pond, the ice shattered and violet swiftly scooped up all the little tadpoles around. That day we saved the lives of many tadpoles, and that is a day that I will never forget.