GALION – Dave Spraw loves to tell the story.

The story of a special Santa Claus collection. The story of how he and his late wife, Jan, acquired more than 500 Kris Kringle’s over the years. Each one bearing more than gifts, each one carrying a sleigh full of memories. Memories for Spraw that go all the way back to 1970.

“I think the collection just kind of had a life of its own. It just started,” said Spraw, 72, a longtime English and Speech teacher at Galion High School, who retired in 2008. “I think it was unique at the time and it seemed like anyplace we would go had them until at one point she finally said, ‘No more big ones’ so we had to add littler ones from then on.”

Some are from Spraw’s childhood years growing up in Galion, others from the couple’s travels to South Dakota, Texas and Connecticut. One-of-a-kind Santas made of ceramic and slate, wood and cloth. Gifts from their daughter, Erin Spraw, and from the cities where she has lived and worked. Plenty more from family and friends.

Jan, who passed away in 2014, always played Christmas music when they started putting up the annual display, filling most of the living room and kitchen of their one-story home. She numbered each one – in a discrete location, of course – indicating its sequence in the collection and stored them downstairs in dozens of plastic totes.

The Spraws, who were high school sweethearts at Galion, were married Jan. 26, 1969. One of their first Santas as newlyweds was a Christmas gift from his mother, who used to belong to a Christmas Club back in the day. It was actually a promotional giveaway that year from Galion Building and Loan, Spraw said. Others soon followed.

A jack-in-the-box from the old Casey’s Hardware uptown. A Santa and Mrs. Claus that were limited-edition Thomas Clark originals. A hand-painted Santa made by a dear friend and art teacher at the high school – Jack Alesch. Ornaments from their church bazaar at St. Paul United Methodist. Snow globes, pillows, paintings and a music box that plays “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

It was easy in those days for Spraw to find gifts for his wife year-round. Sometimes he smuggled them home from regular trips to Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland, and it was a tradition to attach a unique Santa ornament to the package. Friends added countless treasures to their collection, too, with pencil figures, wind-ups and light-ups of the legendary character.

“It always made an easy gift for people who thought, ‘What should we get Jan? Well, let’s just get her a Santa,” Spraw recalled. “It was nice that I could buy her gifts too, something she would like, and add to the collection. Lots and lots with special meaning with so many of them, and it was fun to find presents that were different.”

The nostalgic display, which is arranged differently each year, includes a ceramic Santa boot which Spraw got from a neighbor filled with candy canes when he was only five; a coffee can Santa from Jan’s grandmother covered in fabric and felt; a toilet paper roll version made by Erin in pre-school; and another favorite – tiny nesting Santas that she brought back from a trip to Poland.

Spraw will never forget the custom-framed Santa print he splurged on for Jan one year after repeatedly eyeing it in the window of the former hardware store. Or the year he spotted a cardboard Coca-Cola Santa after Christmas in Clancy’s on Harding Way. He ended up buying that prized piece, too, after persuading the local manager to get the O.K. from corporate.

The collectibles are painstakingly packed up after New Year’s Day, Spraw said – a major undertaking that sometimes takes weeks since all the delicate pieces have to first be wrapped in tissue paper and bubble wrap. “It’s a real packing job to put them away and I do a lot of packing in the basement because those storage totes can be heavy.”

And although Jan has been gone for six years now, Spraw is as jolly as Old Saint Nick himself about carrying on the family tradition. “I think it’s just one of those things,” he said. “After Jan died, I decided that I truly loved it as much as she did. It’s kind of a labor of love to do it. And when Erin comes home, it’s still Christmas.”