The Christmas War

One fine night in December, I was enjoying a nice cup of cocoa (extra marshmallows) when we got a call from our relatives, inviting us to come over to their house for the holidays. We accepted, on account that we had done this countless times before. We were packed before the next day, and when the 20th of December came we were on our way. It was a 3 hour drive to New Jersey where our relatives Bridget (10), Jayden (8), Molly (5), and Justin (7) lived with my Aunts and Uncles along with everyone else who had been coming to our Christmas celebration. As we arrived, and stepped out of the car we were bombarded with a volley of snowballs!







We tried to fight back but eventually found ourselves retreating to the nice warmth of the house. We greeted everyone and there was talk of presents and Christmas trees and surprises for the rest of the night. My shy, quiet family was coming out of their shells a bit, but it didn’t last for long. After a couple cookies and greeting other family members who had just arrived, we went to bed excited for the next day.
I awoke to the sweet smell of breakfast, my great aunt had prepared eggs and toast, but I had cereal for the lack of getting up early enough. The family members that were up watched TV, and made plans for snowmen, snow forts, and snow cones, our uncle made the best snow cones ever he had his own machine and he made blue, purple, red, and the occasional green snow cone but the delightful color and taste that won my affection was blue.




We started by getting all suited up in our warm bulky snow suits, and ventured outside. We were told it was freezing but the cold could not penetrate our suits of armor, we divided up into teams, but having the number of kids being uneven we rock paper scissored for my cousin Molly…… we lost. But I was sure that with my superior intellect and architecture skills, even though I was only 8 at the time I was sure I could lead my team to victory against Bridget who was probably sure of herself, especially now that my team was outnumbered… We had 2 hours to prepare for the oncoming assault. I put Justin on snowball duty, Josh was to start the fort, I helped with both and went on my own tasks, about 1 hour in, the cold white death we had come to know as snow started falling, adding to the already huge cache around the area.
I started to go crazy on my officers; I put josh and Justin entirely on ammo. We knew it was about time, I looked at my special waterproof black and blue watch that I had been gifted last Christmas. I looked back and victories and losses in my past record, this would be the true tiebreaker; this would prove my dominance over the opposition. Five minutes left. We were well prepared, but devastatingly unaware of the oncoming attack. 3……2…..1. CHARGE! Justin and I grabbed all the snow balls we could carry and moved to foreword boundaries. While Justin and I were making snowballs earlier I had Josh make other obstructions in the enemy’s line of sight in which my comrades and I could hide behind. We were bombarded with snowballs and we returned fire, I had josh stay back and make more snowballs in case of retreat, which I could feel was on coming. We could hold out no longer and fell back, and I was appalled at the sight before me…. Three adults rushed from the house into the enemy lines. Now we were greatly outnumbered, but then everyone who was recently inside was joining different sides. Before long there was an all out war. Everyone was tossing snowballs and yelling. I couldn’t tell who threw it but… I was hit; the snowball hit the side of my face and crawled down into my snow suit. I fell to the hard cold ground and stayed for a moment stunned and in pain. I was revived by Justin who was running and screaming, be brought to my senses and took me way, away from the fighting, to a tree house in the back yard. I looked over the battlefield, Snowballs still flying though the air and meeting their targets. I saw the smiles and heard the laughs of my usually dull, quiet family and I couldn’t help but feel content with the small life that I had, enriched with these few moments of pure happiness.