This is the wrong time of year for a Christmas story, but let’s go with it anyway. It’s very short, so it doesn’t take much time. And when I’m done, I’d like you to tell me if it is a happy story or a sad story. You get to decide.

Lee lived on a farm where they grew cotton, which was not making them rich. Lee had a bunch of brothers and sisters who helped on the farm. Of course, all the kids looked forward to Christmas. On Christmas morning, they would rush to the fireplace and take down their stockings from the mantlepiece. In each stocking would be a few pieces of hard candy and a single orange.

So let me ask you: Is this a sad story or a happy story? If you got an orange for Christmas and nothing else, you might feel disappointed. That makes it a sad story. But in the time and place where Lee lived, an orange was a rare treat. For him, it is a happy story.

A simple gift like an orange can mean a lot to a person. The same is true for a simple act of kindness.

The other day I was standing in front of a parking meter with a puzzled expression on my face. The parking meter was in Valencia, Spain, and the instructions were in — try not to act surprised — Spanish. As an English-speaking person, I was like a canary trying to take a math test. I had no idea what to do. A woman came up beside me to make a payment on the same parking meter. I moved aside and invited her to go ahead. I wasn’t making progress anyway.

“No, no,” she said and motioned for me to continue. Using hand motions and hardly any words that I could understand, she helped me through the steps of making a payment on the meter. Those two minutes she took to help meant the world to me.

Galations 5 lists kindness as one of the fruits of the Spirit. So maybe you’ll forgive me for thinking of kindness as an orange, a small, sweet thing that can mean a lot.

Facts about oranges:

Oranges, grown in tropical regions stay green as they ripen. It takes cool weather for the skin to turn orange.

Nine out of 10 Florida oranges are used to make juice.

The name of the orange fruit came long before name of the color in the English-speaking world. Before the 1500s, the color we know as orange was described as red or yellow-red.

Brazil produces more oranges than any other country.

As far as we know, there were no oranges in the Garden of Eden. They are a man-made hybrid of two other citrus fruits: a pomelo and a mandarin.