Christmas Parade: Knoxville Style, Part One: The Orhodox

Knoxville Christmas Parade, Gay Street, December 2010

I'm not sure if it was my mood or if perhaps I've turned in to a curmudgeon when I wasn't looking, but one thing that struck me about this year's parade was how much of its contents had nothing to do with Christmas.  Since I had far too many pictures for one blog post, anyway, I decided to divide them into orthodox and unorthodox portions of the parade. I don't mean orthodoxy in the strictly theological sense - I'm down with Santa, Rudolf, Elves and so on. I mean much of it had very little to do with either the religious or the cultural celebration.

Of course, the decisions are mine and they are arbitrary. Some of the entries were difficult to place in one category or the other. I realize that we've always had non-Christmas elements in our parades, I'm just not sure if I'm noticing it more or if it is getting to be more pervasive. Feel free to weigh in with your opinion.

Rutledge Band, Knoxville Christmas Parade, Gay Street, December 2010

This is an example of how difficult such an exercise might be: What does a high school marching band have to do with Christmas? Nothing, of course. Still, I'm calling them orthodox because we need their music to add the festive to the festivities and because there is such a long-standing tradition of high school bands being in Christmas parades. I'm grandfathering them in.

Angel Float, Knoxville Christmas Parade, December 2010

This is pure Christmas: Angels singing in the night. I give them bonus points because, I do believe they are all decked out in white snuggies. That makes these guys pretty smart angels in my book.

Knoxville Christmas Parade, December 2010

Horses in the Knoxville Christmas Parade

Here we go again: Christmas story = No horses, Santa Mythology = No horses. So why do I call it orthodox? In the south we sort of think of ourselves as redneck east-of-the-Mississippi Cowboys. Most of us never sit on a horse or try to make a cow do anything, but still, that's what we think. Also, they were grandfathered in. We've just been doing it too long. Still, do you get the idea? I'm stretching to relate this to the holiday.

Christmas Float, Knoxville Christmas Parade, December 2010

I'll take this because of the stars, but who are these guys? They look like FBI agents. Could Knoxville start labeling the floats so we know who these uncomfortable looking people are supposed to be? Could it be that hard? Maybe I'm dumber than the average parade watcher and everyone else knows all these people.

Knoxville Christmas Parade, December 2010

Here again, much benefit of the doubt. The guys were either playing or lip-syncing to a rock song which may have been religious, but there was no way to know with the poor audio. I'm guessing they are religious because of the sign.

Knoxville Christmas Parade, December 2010

I'm calling this orthodox because the girls in white could be angels and this could be a snapshot of the Nutcracker, but really, what does ballet have to do with Santa or Jesus?

Knoxville Christmas Parade, December 2010

These guys were among the cutest of the night. I loved the little cows. You have mangers, angels and cows who may or may not have been lowing: That's pretty dead on.

Elves in the Knoxville Christmas Parade, December 2010

Sleigh in the Knoxville Christmas Parade, December 2010

Snowman Float, Knoxville Christmas Parade, December 2010

See, I'm being pretty open-minded. Neither Santa nor Jesus ever mentioned a snowman, but it's wintry and Christmas is in winter, so I'm good with that.

Donkey in Knoxville Christmas Parade, December 2010

More open-mindedness here. There was, in fact, a donkey in the traditional Christmas story, so I'm giving this my orthodox blessing even though there is no pretend Mary aboard this donkey and I don't think the original was named "Minis." Still, he was pretty darn cute.

Knoxville Christmas Parade, December 2010

Knoxville Christmas Parade, December 2010

Knoxville Christmas Parade, December 2010

Knoxville Christmas Parade, December 2010

As a generality, I don't see cars as an orthodox addition to a Christmas parade. In this specific case, I'm declaring it an orthodox version of a child's wind up toy and toys are definitely orthodox.

Knoxville Christmas Parade, December 2010

This one was borderline. OK, you have Christmas trees and wreaths,but who are these people? They look like young teen aspiring models. What does that have to do with Christmas? Couldn't they have worn a Santa hat, at least?

Santa in the Knoxville Christmas Parade, December 2010

So that ends the conventional portion. It was a very good and fun parade. I doubt many people left disappointed. If you've got Santa, what more is necessary? Still, much of what I saw left me scratching my head. I'll cover those parts in my next post. Ho Ho Ho.