Mr. Smith slowly approached my desk with a hat in his grasp. I prayed to myself that I would pick a good prompt for my midterm paper. When I withdrew my prompt from the hat Mr. Smith asked what I got.
“Describe a time you made a difference.” I replied with a sigh. When have I changed as a person? As I walked out the door Mr. Smith reminded the class that our midterm paper is due when we get back from winter break. I have to make this essay good, it’s the midterm paper of my senior year, but I can’t remember a time I’ve made a difference. Oh I know! That one time in seventh grade. It all started on a crisp winter day in mid-December at school . . .
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I was chatting amongst my group of friends about the annual Christmas party we have every year. It’s a fun get together where we make mouthwatering desserts, Christmas cards, and pretty ornaments. My friends and I were excited to introduce this fun tradition to my new best friend, Savanna. When I announced the news to Savanna, rather than being ecstatic as I suspected, she just shrugged and said:
“You guys can do it, I don’t really want to.” All my friends were shocked. This was not the happy, bubbly Savanna we were all used. Thinking Savanna was just in a bad mood previously, I called her up later that night and invited her to come with me to the Christmas parade downtown. She yelled: “NO!” and hung up. I wasn’t stopping . I guess I should walk over to her house and see what’s going on.
I greeted Savanna’s mom as I entered her house. Savanna cringed as I walked in her room.
“Come on Savanna, what’s wrong?” I questioned. “Why don’t you want to do any of the fun Christmas stuff?” She took a long heavy breath and replied: “I’m Jewish.”
“That’s all? Why didn’t you say so?” I said plainly.
“I didn’t think you would like me because I’m Jewish. “She said with hints of shame in her voice.
“What? That’s ridiculous I don’t care if you’re Jewish.” I laughed.
“Really?” Savanna asked in amazement.
“Really. And all our friends won’t care either. We like you just the way you are.” I promised.
“Awesome let’s tell them tomorrow.” Savanna said excitedly.
The next day Savanna and I announced to our friends that Savanna celebrates Hanukkah, not Christmas. Instead of being understanding, they were horrified.
“Ew, you’re Jewish?” someone asked.
“My momma told me to stay from Jews.” Another said disgustingly. For the rest of lunch our friends harassed Savanna until she left in tears. I really don’t know what the big deal is, and I feel really bad for Savanna there must be something I can do.
And I did do something. The next day (last day of school before winter break) I talked to Principal Martinez. He loved my idea, and that’s why I’m getting ready to speak at the school assembly. Before the principal called me up, I noticed that Savanna isn’t at school today.
“Alright you’re on.” Principal Martinez whispered in my ear. As I stepped up on stage all eyes were on me as I began my speech.
“We all come from different backgrounds, and that’s okay. It’s important that we’re all different it’s what creates diversity. If everyone was the same it would be boring. Lately people have been making fun of one of my friends who’s Jewish. I don’t think that’s right. So rather than being ignorant of each other, we should work together and learn about one another’s differences.” I got applause from the crowd.
When school ended that day my friends greeted me with warm hugs. They felt really bad about making fun of Savanna, and they had a great idea. We all went to house and started working on it. After we finished, I called Savanna.
“Hello?” Savanna answered.
“Hey, Savanna could you come over real quick? It’s really important.” I begged.
“I don’t know.”
“Please?”
“Fine, but just for a minute.” Savanna finally gave in.
When the doorbell rang everyone ran and hid in the basement. I directed Savanna down stairs.
“Why are we going down here?” Savanna questioned as we entered the basement.
“Happy Christmakkah!” Everyone shouted. We had a huge sign hung up saying Happy Christmakkah.
“What is this?” Savanna was puzzled.
“I felt bad that everyone being mean to you because you’re Jewish so I spoke at the assembly today about why being a different religion doesn’t matter and they all realized. So we decided to make our annual Christmas party a combination of celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah.” I said.
“Thank you guys so much, this is awesome!” Savanna beamed.
“Let the party begin!” I yelled. We had so much fun at that party, we decided to have our Christmakkah celebration every year on the last day of school before winter break.
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So I guess that’s when I made a difference. I still have to get it down on paper, but it’ll have to wait, right now I have a Christmakkah party to go to.
