The following archived pixs were taken during the month of December, 2003 documenting our annual Christmas Eve family party and also our Burlington Street Block Party which might have been the first one the Porter, Hildreth and Deese families hosted.  Our last block party was Christmas 2006 due to members with serious and life threatening medical issues.

Sometime back, while going through old CDs and DVDs of pictures taken, I created a folder for the Christmas 2003 pixs and placed the aforementioned pictures in it for later web publishing.

I will start with some of my bride's Christmas decor of which she handcrafted many of the items and will thumbnail most of the pixs, therefore click on them for a larger screen view.  I currently do much better on sticking to a standard picture format size and try not to resize them but as with most things, there is a learning curve!

MY BRIDE'S INSIDE CHRISTMAS DECOR

Below pix of the decorated Christmas tree before being surrounded with packages:

BURLINGTON STREET BLOCK PARTY

My bride aka Mrs. Santa Claus with some refreshments.  This was our first year for the Burlington Street Block Party and it rapidly grew to over 100 visitors who came by for refreshments and enjoy the Christmas Street decorations.  As evidenced by the small number of pixs taken, I didn't do too much camera work at all because there were definitely more that came by.

PORTER HOME OUTSIDE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS AND DECOR

I cut out the Santa Claus and other wood decor and my bride did the artistic stuff with the paint brush; I do the brawn and she does the artistic and intellectual elements.  

The Star of David above the Peace On Earth Angels is about forty (40) feet off the ground and the Cross in the background is also about that height, however the Cross is down hill a good ways and you don't get the same perspective of the height from the top of the hill view.  Each leg of the Star of David is 10 feet in length and fabricated it out of 1/2" EMT and welded the frame and added the lights.  I used one of my own patented Hunter's Dream foot climber tree stands to get the Star of David up the tree after I bolted a metal bracket to the tree to support it.  My bride was the ground person who assisted with the pull-up rope and keeping it from rotating while it was hoisted up the large pine tree. 

CHRISTMAS EVE PARTY

Looks like we had a pretty good spread of vittles going there and see a pot of Chicken n Dumplings, baked ham and all sorts of goodies!

Above pix of our Pop....he passed away on August 10, 2007 and our Mom passed away on May 1, 2011 and they both are greatly missed.  They tried to be present at all of our annual events and we shared much quality time together.  Mom's fried rabbit and gravy with rice and biscuits was one of my favorite meals and it was definitely Pop's favorite.

CHRISTMAS EVE EXCHANGING GIFTS

The young kids are the wonderful part of Christmas, watching all the excitement they have while opening gifts being full of life, energy, enthusiasm of which they rip into the wrappings without much finesse to see what is inside the wrapped package.

CHRISTMAS DAY 2003

Well, the Porter home survived another Christmas and looking forward to many, many more, The Lord willing of course!

With Christmas 2016 rapidly approaching, it is hard to grasp just how fast time is going by, but time is constant in speed and duration.  Both Travis and Trevor are adults now in their early twenties but it seems like only yesterday in my mind's eye they will small "rug rats".......time waits for no one. 

Each Christmas, my bride and myself inject both Christian and secular elements into our Christmas decorations, for without Christ there would be no Christmas and "Jesus is the reason for the season."

Web published by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 10-09-16. 

LEAVING ON A SPIRITUAL NOTE