It's Italian... "Frah-GEE-lee!"

OK, if you haven't seen, or don't remember, A Christmas Story, the title of this post must make no sense.

Anyway ... I love A Christmas Story, the perennial Yuletide classic in which hapless Ralphie Parker pines away for that Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle with a thing that tells time.

But my adoration of it pales beside that of San Diego resident Brian Jones. Through the magic of eBay, Jones recently bought the Cleveland, Ohio, house that served as exteriors for the Parker family home in that 1983 film.

In a fun-as-hell story, the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Amanda Garrett reports on Jones' love affair with the movie:

"It all started, Jones said, when he and his parents watched 'A Christmas Story' on TV one year. They joked about all the characters' foibles and laughed at all the ridiculous childhood scenarios that were universal, no matter when or where you grew up.

" 'Everyone got caught saying "Oh, fudge" at least once,' Jones said.

"Time passed. And one day after Jones graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, he received a large wooden crate marked 'FRAGILE.'

Jones said he didn't make the connection to the movie at first. Then he opened it. A life-sized woman's plastic leg covered in fishnet was inside. A fringe lampshade sat on top.

"It looked just like the leg lamp Ralphie's father so proudly displayed in the front window of his family's house in 'A Christmas Story' -- much to his wife's consternation.

"Jones' parents, it turned out, had gone to the garment district in Los Angeles, bought different pieces and assembled the lamp for him as a joke.

[...]

"More time passed and when Jones left the Navy ... it dawned on him how to make a living. On April 9, 2003, he launched RedRiderLeglamps.com -- a largely online venture that sells replica lamps from the movie for $139.99, plus $35 shipping and handling.

"So far, he has sold about 3,000 of the curvaceous 45-inch-tall gams. A bulb under the shade lights up, but so, too, does the leg."

RedRiderLeglamps.com plans to restore the house to the way it appeared in the film and eventually turn the place into a museum of all things Christmas Story.

Now, if only someone were to pay homage to my other favorite Christmas movie ...