According to the City of Knoxville’s website the annual window decoration event is underway and will run from November 27 – December 17. Called “Window Wonderland,” businesses were encouraged to decorate their window – or windows – in a friendly contest to see who did the best job. A map of participants indicates that twenty-six (one has two locations) answered the call, ranging from the Knoxville Chocolate Factory on the World’s Fair Park to Blue Slip Winery north of the Old City.
I tried to photograph them all at night in order to get the full effect of the lighted display. Some weren’t lighted and in some cases I couldn’t spot a window that was clearly decorated beyond a string of lights or a bit of tinsel. Interestingly, a number of businesses – TVA Credit Union comes to mind – have excellent displays but chose not to participate. Some of the businesses may have a display that is only visible in daytime and for those, I’m sorry, but I shot at night.
I don’t have a lot to say about these, though I think some of them are very nice. Some of the businesses have smaller windows and some have numerous large windows while one decorated an entire lobby. It makes them a bit hard to compare fairly. I’d encourage you not to vote based on anyone’s photos, mine included, but rather to walk around downtown and see them yourself.
After doing that, I would encourage you to vote, but there’s where it gets a bit tricky. The directions (which you’ll find at the bottom of the map) indicate you may do so on the City of Knoxville Special Events Facebook Page, but there is nothing on the page allowing voting or even mentioning the contest as far as I can see. When I contacted the city I was told it will be on there soon.
The other option is to download the Knoxville Events App and vote there. This is what I did. It downloaded properly on my second attempt making me, according to the Play Store, the 51st person to download the Android app. That’s not a very big pool for a contest. I found the link at the bottom of the list of options on the app and cast my vote which led to a message from the app that someone would respond to me. I’m not sure what we’ll talk about, but that will be fine.
I will say that the app has a good map of downtown and it has the events pulled from the city’s events calendar and that’s kind of nice to have on my phone. You might consider getting the app if you haven’t – and I’m pretty sure most of you haven’t. Enjoy the photographs, get out and take that walk and then vote some way or another. I’ll stop at that and let you look at the photographs.
