I suspect our Christmas parade is no different than many across the country in that much of what is included isn’t really related to the holiday. In fact, if you stripped away all the extraneous matter, maybe there wouldn’t be enough left to justify the event. Certainly Knoxville has a large, lengthy, colorful parade. Probably there are other cities that cannot imagine having one as magnificent.
Still, I think there are some questionable inclusions. Why, for example, do we need to hear Rocky Top during a Christmas parade? Of all the great Christmas songs we could hear, I heard that one at least twice. I know where I live, but can’t we ever celebrate something other than the Big School on the Hill? I mean, a song about moonshine at a Christmas parade?
I’ll count them down, with the understanding that I’m not attacking any of these fine groups, I’m just saying perhaps we should have a miscellaneous parade to include them all. Maybe, just maybe, the people who plan the parade should tighten the criteria just a little bit.
So here are my questionable entries:
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| Knoxville Christmas Parade, Gay Street, December 2010 |
Number 16: (yes, there are that many) Bizarre Confused Float – “But wait,” you say, “I see a manger and angels, what could be more appropriate?” Well, you are right and that almost put them on the orthodox list, but when you look closer, you see the problems. I won’t quibble about the sex of the angels. Even though every Biblical angel is male we, as a culture insist on having them be female. I don’t have time to break that one down. My problem with this float is two-fold: First, what do the ten commandments have to do with anything? Give me a prophetic Isaiah or the Luke accounting and I’m good, but the ten commandments? Weren’t they chiseled about two thousand years before the Christ child? And then there is the imp. At least I’m guessing that’s what he is, lurking just beneath the angel holding the ten commandments (which no angel did as far as I can recall). This is just a mess.
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| Knoxville Christmas Parade, December 2010 |
Number 15: Guys in Pillbox Hats – Who are these guys? They seem to have Kerbellaesque hats on. Thy almost match each other. So they walk in the Christmas parade? Why? Come on guys, throw some candy or something. Which is another thing: No candy for the entire parade! What says Christmas parade more than candy?
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| Knoxville Christmas Parade, December 2010 |
Number 14: Cub Scouts on a float with a simulated camp scene. Cute, I get. Christmas, I do not.
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| Knoxville Christmas Parade, December 2010 |
Number 13: Boy Scouts on foot. Why?
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| Knoxville Christmas Parade, Gay Street, December 2010 |
Number 12: Truck and Ornament – It’s a truck with an inflatable Christmas ornament in the back. I get that these guys want to advertise their business (on the side of the truck) and I’ve got no problem with that, but this looks like something we’d be likely to see any day on Kingston Pike this time of year. Does it qualify for the Christmas parade?
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| Knoxville Christmas Parade, Gay Street, December 2010 |
Number 11: Motorcycle guy with a Christmas hat. We’ll call this the vehicle section. I’ll confess, I like this picture (thanks to my friend Lisa for taking it), but it’s a guy on a motorcycle. Yes, he’s wearing a cute hat, but is that all it takes to qualify for the parade?
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| Knoxville Christmas Parade, Gay Street, December 2010 |
Number 10: Snowman on a Big Orange Truck – More Big Orange, more vehicle. Yes, there is a snowman, but even the snowman was a little creepy.
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| Knoxville Christmas Parade, Gay Street, December 2010 |
9. Dump truck with Christmas Lights – I’ve actually seen this before. Black Mountain, North Carolina has a very, very small parade and every possible vehicle in the area from dump trucks to back hoes gets into the act. It’s charming in a town of a few hundred people, not so much in a city. I think a no-dump truck rule might be appropriate.
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| Knoxville Christmas Parade, Gay Street, December 2010 |
8. Boat with Christmas Lights – It’s a little classier than the Christmas Dump truck and at least there is no orange checkerboard on this one, but really, it’s still a boat with tinsel and lights. Is that all it takes?
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| Knoxville Christmas Parade, Gay Street, December 2010 |
7. Smart Car with a bow – I love being ecologically sound. Really, I do. I drive a Prius. Smart cars are, well, smart. Love, love, love them: Sick of checkerboards and a bow on the front of a car does not make it an entry in the Christmas parade.
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| Knoxville Christmas Parade, Gay Street, December 2010. |
6. Flat Bed Truck with a few lights and a lot of advertising – We have a huge banner advertising an automotive center, a smaller banner advertising a baseball team, some disinterested people in street clothes and the mascot for the baseball team. Oh, and we have tiny Christmas lights. Now I get it – not.
This is just too much fun. You would think surely this entry could not be topped for unorthodox Christmas floats. You would be so wrong. This simply concludes the vehicle section. The next post will have the top five most inappropriate (non) Christmas floats in the Knoxville Parade.