We are now in a season saturated with offers to purchase the "great holiday present" or "the most perfect gift." If we give these items to our friends and loved ones, their holidays will be complete.

Call me Scrooge, but "great" and "perfect" are not the best words available to describe vegetation growing from a clay head or yet another bottle of cologne.

In high school and college, I received at least one bottle of Hai Karate every Christmas. The ads depicted a man splashing on the stuff and then having to defend himself against the onslaught of insatiable women drawn to the scent. I had no illusions. Had I worn this malodorous substance to school, the girls would indeed have attacked me — to the point of disability — to get rid of the stink.

Nevertheless, I appreciated the sentiment of the gift-givers. My people were always generous where it counted – in their hearts. One year, I asked one of my grandmothers for the latest record by a popular English group. She apologized for not being able to get it for me. "I looked all over," she said, "and I just couldn't find anything by Ted Zeppelin."

I don't need the television shouters to tell me what the perfect gift is. I received that gift 33 years ago. It didn't come in a box, but it was a unique mixture of the tangible and the intangible. It marked the end of one season of life and the start of a new one.

The early 20s is the most dangerous period of a man's life. They feel invincible, but they have also just stepped away from home and into a minefield. They haven't experienced enough of life. They believe laws of man, God and nature don't apply to them, so they can heedlessly walk through the minefield without consequence.

That's exactly what I thought, too. And the sound of the detonations could be heard from Houston, Texas, to here.

My plan to go south, make a bunch of money and have a bunch of fun ended up in my simply going south. As everything came crashing down, there remained a lifeline in the words of my parents: "You can always come back to the farm." That standing offer called me home to people who hadn't heard from me for months, who didn't know whether I was dead or alive.

I had exactly enough money for bus fare from Houston to Kalamazoo, and arrived Sunday morning, Dec. 24, 1978. Dad received my collect call, dropped everything and drove to Kalamazoo. Soon we were all back together again. The power of that gift, the open door, the open arms, the second chance, sustains me every day.

Despite the deluge of crassness and bad taste, there is still something about the holidays that speaks to an incredible hope of reconciliation and forgiveness.

Perhaps there is a long-standing estrangement in your family, one of those simmering misunderstandings – or even feuds – that never changes because someone keeps picking at the wound. It never heals because no one will make the first move toward healing.

This is the time of year peppered by words such as "peace" and "joy." It is the perfect time to make the first move, to say, "You can always come back into my home, my family, my life, my heart."

There is no guarantee of healing or the kind of reunion I had with my family that December morning. But think about this: the only reason that reunion was possible was because somebody made the offer. Somebody was willing to go first.

If you have a chance to give this great gift this holiday season, do it. Reach out. Make the offer of forgiveness and reconciliation. Don't wait for the other guy.

You do it. You go first.

Lee Dean is the editor of Generations magazine.

