Silent NINE, Holy NINE . . .

I have said before that I have internet friends that I have never met face to face. Once of those Friends was Darryl Grimm. Darryl was a friend of my crazy friend Roland. Darryl lived in New Orleans for many years before moving to Las Vegas after hurricane Katrina. Darryl had a blog and a message board at durlix.com. I loved reading his blog and chatting with him. He is the man who used to run the cheese department at Whole Foods and gave me the fondue recipe that Kat and I use. I had asked Roland first but he tried to pass a biscuit and gravy recipe off as a fondue recipe. Darryl, of course came through in a pinch.

One of the things that I most loved about Darryl’s blog was when he would write about “lil’ durlix” and the things he did as a young boy at Christmas time. One year, before I started my blog I had written something about my Christmas memories and he sent me a coffee mug he had printed a picture from the nutcracker ballet with his website logo on it. That is still one of my favorite Christmas mugs.

Darryl passed this year, and even though I never met him, never even spoke to him on the phone, I still mourn his passing. He was one of the good guys, and I miss him.
Throughout this year’s 25 days I am plan on sharing some of his Christmas Blog entries. I don’t think he’d mind.

When I was a lil durlx, I loved Christmas soooo much. At the age of ten, I had already started; I was a lil durlx/martha stewart. I put the first tree up the day after Thanksgiving; there were three more trees after that. I made angels out of paper mache and wire, and painted them. We were fortunate to have so many pine trees on the farm; I made so many wreathes and garlands. (Poor trees!)

I HAD to have candles in every window! And lights!

My parents let me do it; they were so nice about it. They put up with the remarks about the electric bill because there were so many lights, "It must cost a fortune, Margaret!"

But they knew me, and accepted me for what I was...
They came home early one July night when I was ten. I had pulled out all the Christmas lights and decorations and put them up. They had come home early because one of the neighbors had called them to tell them that our house was "lit up like a Christmas tree!"
My Mom and Dad tried to tell me why I shouldn't have done what I did, but they kept looking at each other and laughing. It made me so happy; I wanted to make them look at each other and laugh like that again and again.