Skip to content

Winter Wonderland

I looked out my window. I only saw white? I jumped out of bed and shouted, Mom, Dad, Darien, the first snow; it finally happened.
65073tribunea22SUBCaribooFestivalWritinglainegrace830
Laine Grace won the prose award in her entry class at the Cariboo Festival 2012 with this story Winter Wonderland.

I looked out my window. I only saw white? I jumped out of bed and shouted, Mom, Dad, Darien, the first snow; it finally happened. Now we can build our rink?”

“Great,” my mom groaned.

Darien yelled, “Yippee! Laine, go get your coat on, we can start to build up edges.”

My brother and I went outside and started packing up snow to be the edges.

Hatrick, our Old English Sheepdog was just as excited with the snow as we were.

We finished the edges, and went inside for nice, warm hot chocolate covered in whipping cream, marshmallows, chocolate chips, and sprinkles.

“Aaahhh, delicious,” I sighed with content, my mouth covered in a whipping cream mustache.

For the rest of our day we went cross-country skiing in our winter wonderland.

The next morning I woke up to the temperature being plus-five C.

I looked outside.

The edges we had built were gone, the snow one big puddle. I slowly got out of bed, deeply depressed and disappointed. I thought bitterly, “There goes our winter wonderland.”

It snowed a little bit more today, and I decided to walk the dog. I grabbed Hatrick’s leash and collar. As I was doing so I heard a quiet melody.

It was gone almost immediately after I heard it. I thought nothing of it. I walked Hatrick, but when I got back I heard the melody again. This time, however, it was a different type of melody, more rock and roll. This time I was intrigued. I looked everywhere, trying to find out where it could have come from, when it hit me.

Of course! It was coming from the gnome home, a little door on the entrance of the tree.

My parents had put it there just for decoration or a mere chuckle every now and then.

I knew there was no such thing as gnomes, but then what was in the tiny door? I had tried to turn the small knob before, just in case, but it had never opened.

I tried again.

This time the door swung open. Inside was a whole new world, a people sized world, nevertheless.

There were people everywhere. A lake was covered in people having a scrimmage, a lodge full of people coming in and out with hot chocolate and marshmallows to roast by the fire, which momentarily was being swarmed by even more people.

I asked the nearest person: “Where am I? What is this place?”

“We are in Winter Wonderland, open only in winter to people that love winter!” he answered.

I shouted: “Awesome!”

I ran down to the rink, laced up my skates and began to play hockey.

It was wonderful!

It was an open lake with a big part of it shovelled off.

As it started to get dark, lights strung across over the lake lit up. The sight was astounding!

Not much later the zamboni drove out to flood the surface! The driver even let me drive the zamboni!

I finished skating, and then went to the fire to roast marshmallows and drink hot chocolate.

I soon decided that since it was past sundown, I had better get home.

When I got home, no time had passed.

It was crazy. Our family decided to go cross-country skiing because the snow at Bull Mountain was still great.

As we were skiing, I decided that hockey in the gnome home was quite exhilarating, but my real winter wonderland was with my family.