Christmas music should only be played after Thanksgiving. The only exception that I make to this rule is for the Fantasy of Trees to benefit East Tennessee Children’s Hospital (ETCH), which begins two days before Thanksgiving and runs through the weekend. Fantasy of Trees has been a Thanksgiving tradition for me since I worked at ETCH in 2000. All proceeds from this year’s show will purchase various equipment for the hospital’s inpatient floors. More details and ticket information can be found here.

The Gala Preview Party opened the event on Tuesday night and is always one of my favorite holiday events. Nothing else gets me ready for the Season like being surrounded by loads of holiday décor, good food, and old friends. This year’s theme of, “No Business Like Snow Business” created a cute winter backdrop for all of the designer items, children’s activities and shops. As always, many trees, wreaths and centerpieces are gorgeous, creative and whimsical. Yet, many are quirky, overdone and, frankly, hideous. If you stop by the show this weekend, do not miss my favorite attraction, the Gingerbread Village.

What other Knoxville Thanksgiving traditions are out there?

For full disclosure, my first grown-up job was in Community Relations department at ETCH and I still work as a PRN employee.

Photography by krisdecurtis

Allison and Matt Sprouse seem to be popping up everywhere. I see them Downtown, North Knox, even as far out as Farragut. That’s when it hit me, they are a large part of the community.

As the ice skating rink at Market Square is around the corner, we wanted to remind all Knoxify readers to stop in and do some holiday shopping at Abode in Market Square.

One of the great things about Knoxville is our location to many outdoor activities. Did you know there is a dude ranch close by?

That’s right, check out the French Broad Outpost Ranch located in Del Rio, TN, about an hour outside of Knoxville. The ranch is the only dude ranch located in the Great Smoky Mountains and one of the few located in the eastern United States.

I have visited this Dude Ranch and when I saw they are having a drawing for a free nights stay, I thought I would share that with Knoxify readers. Give them a look; spending New Year’s at a Dude Ranch in the Smoky Mountains with your loved ones may be a great way to start the year off!

As many of you know, two of my favorite things are pizza and beer. In fact, Knoxify was the first Knoxville blog to post about Fat Tire coming to Ktown.

All this goodness comes together at the Pizza Kitchen on December 4, as New Belgium comes to town for a taste test offering free pint glasses with the purchase of the golden stuff. The Pizza Kitchen really hits a wide variety of patrons; not only does it have an outstanding beer culture, but the gourmet pizza is to die for and sometimes they even show movies for the kids, feature live entertainment and have a stellar patio setup.

I can’t really think of a more well-rounded restaurant in Knoxville, can you?

FYI: Fat Tire and Motherwhip Wit on draft and the Mama Mia are my recommendations.

Photography by mfajardo

The View of Knoxville series is derived from photos in our flickr group. Add your pictures and we might feature them here.

Even though the Sentinel reported that Downtown Knoxville parking prices may go up soon, we doubt that will keep the ice skaters away.

According to their Web site, over 16,000 people enjoyed the ice-skating rink last year on Market Square. Starting Friday, November 28th, the Alstom-sponsored rink opens up to the public again.

Will you be getting your Downtown skate on this year?

Photography by Thomas Hawk

The View of Knoxville series is derived from photos in our flickr group. Add your pictures and we might feature them here.

Marty McFly called and wanted some of his posts back. Hence the reason there are missing posts and comments.

In all Knoxified seriousness, we suffered a craptastic database failure last night which resulted in the loss of a couple posts and quite a few of your comments. As you can probably tell we went back in time and arrived at November 4th.

We will continue to work to restore the site back to its previous November 15th glory so if you experience errors while browsing the site we apologize.

Thanks,
Knoxify.com Janitor

Update: After another database restore we were able to pull up all of our posts. On a sad note we lost all 11 comments from the Does Knoxville Need a Waffle House on The Strip? post. We apologize again for the inconvenience this has caused.

Photography by jasonEscapist

I have lived in Knoxville for almost 9 years, 4 of which were spent living Downtown on or near campus at UT. Like many other UT students I spent some quality time getting to know The Strip (Cumberland Ave to you Knox n00bs).

Something I had a hard time understanding and still can’t believe is the lack of a Waffle House in the Downtown area. Forcing UT students to venture out into the Papermill area for an Awful Waffle fix is just inhumane.

Does Knoxville need a Waffle House on The Strip or somewhere else in the Downtown area?

This photo was taken by roque1789