Every year, I have to watch “White Christmas” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Is it any wonder I can’t stop revisiting the “North Pole” that was on Northwest 32nd Street and 71st Avenue Northwest even though it has been gone for years?

Everyone of a certain age remembers the North Pole. It was a beautiful house that had been decorated to the nines for the holidays as long as the house had been standing. The mast of a ship stood both as a symbol of Santa’s home and actual pole.

Another family member lived farther south, at the “South Pole.”

The house was built in 1929; each subsequent generation added to the traditional holiday decorations.

From hand-painted nativity scenes in the window to moving panoramas on the lawn, lights suspended from every bush and a giant star atop the roof, the display inspired other houses to competing heights of festivity.

Year ago I would walk to the house on winter nights, surrounded by a small band of children carrying lanterns with tea lights. The North Pole was a destination.

On clear, cold nights the street would teem with people, babies bundled in strollers, toddlers being held up to see better, limousines gliding to the curb filled with girls who had been to see "The Nutcracker."

The owners had a popcorn machine and handed out striped red-and-white bags of warm popcorn. News crews used it as a backdrop for holiday coverage. It was a twilight parade.

Two years ago, I wrote about checking in with the former owners after they moved to eastern Washington.

Martin Lysness and his family handed out an average of 5,000 bags of popcorn each year and collected hundreds of pounds of food for Ballard Food Bank.

The flagpole was a mast from an old sailboat that his father erected on the site. His mother hand painted nativity scenes in the windows when he was young.

When asked what he and his wife missed most about Ballard, his lifelong home, he replied, “Christmas.”

The star atop the North Pole went dark more than five seasons ago, but I’m still looking for its return like a comet.

It still exists in thousands of memories, even though all the children who ever visited the North Pole in its 75-year run range from grade-schoolers to grandparents.

“Do you remember the North Pole?” I ask people every year, trying to find my clan, like others obsessed with Zuzu’s petals.

“Of course,” they respond.

After the walk to the North Pole, we’d stop by Webster Park and the kids would run to the playground, rattling the chains on the swings like ghosts.

I still walk in the neighborhood at night, still gaze up at the white pole where couples got engaged and children left wishes.

By Webster playground, I always pause, listening for the sound of children on the playground at night – I am always looking for the past.