Tony Deal and his wife, Lisa, both lifelong residents of Portal, GA, love decorating for Christmas. They are continuing a family tradition started by Tony’s parents, Freddie and Elise Deal.
“It started in the late 70s when we were on vacation visiting my aunt in Milledgeville, and my mama bought two strings of Christmas lights - that was the first we ever had - and so they started decorating and it grew bigger and bigger and bigger out on Banks Dairy Road,” Deal reminisces. “And then whenever I moved out and got married in ‘96, me and my wife started decorating, had very few decorations, and every year we buy more and more until we’ve gotten to the current point of having too many.”
The Deals’ display has become a local tradition made popular through word of mouth. They inherited many of the unique items that made the original display one to remember.
“One neat thing about my decorations -- my parents, whenever they quit, I got a lot of their stuff and one of them is a 20’ diameter, 11’ tall rotating Christmas tree that my brother Robbie Deal built in the late 80s and it’s still in operation,” Deal says. “He used a washing machine motor, a lawn mower transmission, and a fertilizer gear box for the working components of it.”
Deal, who owns his own contracting business, taught at Georgia Southern for more than 20 years in the Physics Department. He also served as a Bulloch County firefighter for 21 years and a medic for Bulloch EMS for 19 years.
“I’ve been doing houses for 30 years; I’m a licensed contractor. I’ve had four careers all at one time, but I’m down to just one: building houses,” Deal says.
In addition to his noteworthy careers, Tony and his wife Lisa have a remarkable history.
“We actually were born same day, same hospital -- Bulloch Memorial -- [and] went all twelve grades together,” Deal says.
The high school sweethearts are happy to continue the tradition started by Tony’s parents many years ago.
“We’re steadily adding to it; as a matter of fact, we bought some more stuff this weekend, and my wife had to put some of it up today.”
Visit the Deal display in person at 3800 Ben Grady Collins Road in Portal.
Please remember this is a private residence and to tour respectfully.