It never fails: This year, just as in every other year for the last two-plus decades, as I was having a rumble through my attic sorting and preparing to haul out once again my Christmas lights and decorations, my father weighed heavily on my mind.

I miss him every day, of course, but I more intensely miss my father – who died 22 years ago – at this time of the year. Christmas was my father’s holiday, and he made a big deal out of it. Since he died, this time of anticipation leading up to the celebration of the great feast has become for me one of bittersweet joy and remembrance.

I know why he made a big fuss about the trappings of Christmas. He was born in Poland and lived there through the very hard years of World War II, the Nazi invasion of his country and its later occupation by the communists. Christmases were quite different for him as a kid in Poland, and he grew up quickly. He often said his childhood was stolen from him. So, the frivolity and glee and the secular observances surrounding Christmas were something he embraced when he came to America. He wanted his children to have what he didn’t – couldn’t – have as a child.

I think my father’s greatest distress at Christmas was the fact that his children had the audacity to grow up and become adults. I kid you not, until his very last Christmas on this Earth, he would ask me what I was hoping Santa Claus would bring me. Here I was, a then-39-year-old-man, telling my father my wish list for Santa. He loved asking and I loved answering, so we kept the ruse going.

He was a stickler also for Christmas decorations, especially the tree. The tree was his domain, and his alone. He decorated it, and we enjoyed looking at it. The ornaments – which now hang on my tree – were lovingly and thoughtfully and carefully placed by my father. No one dared challenge his authority over that.

The same was not true with our nativity. He and I had a little tug of war every year over the placement of the Wise Men statues. He was of the impression that these plaster statues should all face the “audience.” I thought they should be adoring Baby Jesus. Back and forth we went arranging and rearranging the statues, until we reached a compromise: The Wise Men would be situated so as to be walking up to the stable from the rear, that way they faced the “audience” while not ignoring Baby Jesus.

Since he died, I like to think that now he is beholding not a mere plaster representation, but the real Jesus.

One Christmas Eve when I was very young he told me what I now assume is a quaint legend from his native Poland. He told me that if I was able to stay up until midnight on Christmas Eve, I would be able to hear the animals talk. According to him, the night of Christ’s birth is so holy and so special, God allows all the animals on Earth to talk for one hour. They would spend that hour offering praise to God. He said our German Shepherd, Baba, would speak and praise God, and I would be able to hear it if I stayed up late enough. For many years I believed that, but never managed to stay up until midnight to prove it. By the time I was old enough to stay up until midnight, I had long stopped believing that legend.

Many years later, on another Christmas Eve, he told me not a legend, but a sad fact. It was on Christmas Eve in 1998 that he told me he was terminal. He learned from his doctor the day before that the cancer he had been fighting so valiantly would ultimately win. He was very sick that Christmas and he spent most of it sleeping.

That year, there was no big deal made out of decorating the tree, there was no tug of war over the nativity statues, and there was no asking what I was hoping would be in Santa’s gift bag. There would never be so again, because he was dead four months later.

I take comfort in thinking my father celebrates Christmas in heaven, but I would give almost anything if I could have just one more time of playing tug of war with him with the nativity statues or hearing him ask me what I want Santa Claus to bring me for Christmas.