Comet, asteroid, meteor?

On Dec 25, 2007 my sister and I were in Levittown, PA and were outside messing around with her new telescope. All she wanted to do was get it calibrated and see the moon clear for once. My family came outside briefly to check it out but their toes were numb and went back inside. My sis and I stayed out to see what else was out there. We looked to the eastern sky and saw something zooming across the sky. I thought it was a plane with ice on its wings but I was told no. It sparked a couple times at the base and had a long tail. It went on for about a minute then started to decend, still within the eastern sky, heading north. I am wondering if anyone else noticed it and what it could be. If it was a plane that went down I think it would have been on the news. I thought it was so cool to witness something like this and I hope someone else saw something too. If you saw something else let me know too.