The Miraculous Change

Second Place, children's essays

Elliot Hield |

12/18/2008 - 12/19/08

I wake up on a morning close to the holiday break. I groggily rub my tired eyes until I can see more clearly. I lift the shade and look out the window. It is snowing hard!

I grab my glasses and whip them on. The needles on the trees are dressed like differently shaped fluffy hats of frozen water, and the ground looks like a vast bowl of ice cream with brown and green sprinkles that are rocks and trees. I love this time of year, because the most normal day can be transformed, and everyone is happy to accept the change. Most people are so joyful around this time, and already I can see our neighbor out on his lawn taking in the majestic sight.

"Waaahoooo!" I yell, and burst out of the door of my room,
smelling the delicious aroma of pancakes.

"Good morning," say my parents, and I repeat the greeting. The TV is on and I see that the news is scrolling names of schools that are delayed or canceled because of the mounds of snow. I sit down and anxiously watch as the alphabet is run through. Finally, there it is — ALL PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE CLOSED. I jump up and look at my dad.

"Let's go skiing. Hurry!" he says. My dad has happily decided to use his vacation time to take this winter's day off. I wolf down a hasty breakfast and rush to my room. I begin to put many layers of sweaters under my jacket and pull on my snow pants. I strap on my boots and grab my skis. My dad throws them into a scarred black box on top of our Saab that has been decked out with new snow tires. My brother and mother want to stay home, so we set off alone.

We scrape the clinging ice from our window and pull out of our driveway. A sand truck is already about, dusting everything with crimson dirt to melt the snow. The road to the ski area is like a red ribbon, winding its way through ivory ridges with its carpet of trees dressed in white. We have to get there early to avoid the traffic of diehard powder skiers.

Getting out of the car, we start the long journey up the many stairs to the ticket booth. We get to the ski basin just as the first lifts start their groan, the wheel holding the cable spinning round and round. We clear a space for our skis and put them down. Grating our boots against our bindings to free the sticky cakes of snow from them, I clip into my orange Atomic skis and head for the lift. We scoot out onto the track as the lift comes around and board, then we are off. As the chair lifts us higher and higher, we see over the entire mountain, except when fog hides the peaks in its smothering folds. On the run below us, there is only a solitary pair of tracks running in zigzags through the snowfall.

As we near the top, we see the first skier wind his way down the slope. He jumps off the lip of a snow bank and falls into the engulfing sea of crystals. He is lost from sight for a moment and then pops back up, laughing and shaking off a coating of flakes from his body. It is impossible to be unhappy if you love snow enough to be up here
this early.

The lift, straining to reach its cloudy goal before being spun back down on the return trip, allows us to see that, on the top of the crest, the wind has picked up. We step off and slide down the ramp, moving quickly to disembark from the top of the mountain. We choose a tree run that no one is on yet and shoot into the knee-deep powder, floating effortlessly between the pines. This is my happy place, and soon I am gliding happily through the blizzard like a knife gliding through the frosting on a cake. It seems like only a matter of moments before we are in line for another run.

After 10 more glorious runs, our fingers are too cold to grip our poles, so we head into the slope-side restaurant for a cup of steaming hot chocolate by the fire. The molten beverage slides down my throat and warms my insides. After holding the hot mug for a while and downing the rest of my drink, we are ready to continue.

We ski until the lift operators tell us that this is the last run before closing. We fly all the way down the mountain to the parking lot. Back in the car after skiing for seven hours, I immediately fall asleep.

When we reach our house, my mother and brother have made a snowman, and there is a line of angels in a pattern across the lawn. Everyone has managed to have fun today. We take off our boots and clamber into our hot tub to soothe our numb and aching limbs. Exhausted, we go to bed early after a full and absolutely spectacular day. That is how a normal day was transformed into a fantastic
experience with a little snow and a lot of holiday spirit.