Add me to the list of those who lost their fathers in 1999. My dad died on Dec. 22, 1999. Christmas wasn't so happy that year. He was 63. He died of a cancer he'd had for 3 years.
DH died at the age of 42 on December 10, 2005. His cancer was diagnosed 5 months earlier, 2 weeks after our youngest was born. We had planned on having more children. The first thing he said to me after being diagnosed was his regret that that wasn't going to happen. We had both come from families of 3 children and we had promised each other that we weren't going to have 3 children, after seeing the emotional pain of the middle children (DH was one of them). It was either going to be 2 or 4 children, so when we had that 3rd child, we were going to have another right away. Well, two weeks wasn't nearly long enough to make that happen. I ended up with 3 children, and yes, middle child has middle child syndrome.

Luckily she's the only girl, so it isn't so bad. She's quite mad that she doesn't have a sister.
I did not like having the "Your class is making presents for Father's Day. Who should you make a present for?" discussion that I had to have with the 5 year old last week.
FIL is still alive, but sees the kids rarely. He lives half way around the world. When we called him the first Father's Day after dh died, I got told off by MIL.

Now SIL and BIL wonder why I don't call their parents.
So, both Father's Day and Christmas are holidays I try to get through as quickly as possible. They just seem to come around every year though.
