big blue fireball very low

I was walking with my mother (I was 12 y.o) to church on Christmas morning.  It was overcast when I suddenly remembered that the news said that a comet would be visible on Christmas day and that it could be the same one seen by the wise men.  
I looked up and I saw a ball of blue light come out of the clouds and back into the clouds.  I saw the ball that was covered with blue flames, really beautiful like an aquamarine gemstone.  I could see the flames licking the surface of the object. 
I told my mom but of course it was gone.  I felt very fortunate to have seen the comet.  I wasn't until a decade or more later that I thought, wait a minute, a comet isn't low enough to be in the clouds and it was traveling slowly.  I could have been my active imagination maybe.  If so then the mind is an incredible thing.  I saw it as clearly as any object is see before me now.