A Christmas Memory

I am four. I'm certain about that because I still live with my grandparents (my mother took me away when I was five), and I have already lost the last finger on my left hand (my uncle cut it off with hedge shears when I was three). There is a coal fire in the fireplace, glowing and warm. I am sitting on the floor under the tree decorated with bubble lights, tinsel, and sparkly ornaments, red, gold, green, and silver. The plaster creche from Woolworth's is laid out on the floor under the tree: a camel, three wise men (one of whom is Black), two fuzzy sheep (I am allowed to touch them but I have to be careful), a cow, three angels, a shepherd, and of course the classic Mary in blue, Joseph in brown, blonde baby in a nest of straw. There are tangerines all around the creche and under the tree, on the floor. There are more tangerines than I can ever eat, and no rules about them. Anyone can have a tangerine at any time. Plenty. No need to count them, one for you and one for me. No need to ask permission or eat anything else first. We have more than enough tangerines. This is Christmas. It is dark out and cold, and I am completely alone, complete in my nine-fingered bliss, entirely present. I am peeling a tangerine, looking up at the bubbles rising from the bubble lights, thousands of rising and moving lights. All these lights, and all these tangerines meant to be eaten. In retrospect, and at a distance, I realize there were no boxes or ribbons, no stockings, no cards, no expectation of gifts. Gifts, I now know, were not part of our lives. Then, I didn't know what I didn't have. I knew only what I did have: no end of bubbles rising from the bubble lights, and no end of tangerines for anyone who wants one, any time, no rules and no counting. This is what bounty means.