farragutpress

Christmas Lights Knoxville celebrates 10 years

November 5, 2025 by Tammy Cheek

Christmas Lights Knoxville celebrated 10 years in business with Farragut West Knox Chamber of Commerce members, family and other supporters at Davis Family YMCA, 12133 S. Northshore Drive, Wednesday, Oct. 29.

“We’re doing this because Christmas Lights Knoxville is celebrating a milestone,” FWKCC president/CEO Julie Blaylock said. She pointed out the accent lights on the exterior of the YMCA building, which were provided by Christmas Lights Knoxville.

“I feel blessed,” said Chris King, who co-owns the business with his wife, Carrie Fox, and Kevin Pack and Vince Fortner, who own Cornerstone Construction Services.

“We’ve all been in different businesses before; and as any small businessperson or entrepreneur knows, it’s really hard to keep a business going for 10 years,” he said. “Most businesses fail in the first couple of years.”

However, “this community’s been very supportive of us, and we’ve made so many friends with our clients who we’ve been serving for 10 years, since the very first year,” King said. “We get to see them every year.

“The longevity of a company like this comes from a solid team and a good focus on service — and it’s fun; it’s Christmas lights,” he added. “It’s a fun job. We get to celebrate the Christmas season and what all that stands for and brighten people’s nights.”

Christmas Lights Knoxville got its start in 2016 by the founder, Bryan Parris.

“I joined (Parris) in 2020,” King said. “Then, he sold the company to the four of us. (Parris wanted to focus more on his guitar store in Farragut, Parris Guitars.)

“We utilized Cornerstone Construction Services, a big commercial roofing company, to do our Christmas lights which worked out really well,” he said. “We carried Bryan’s mission of building relationships and providing solutions, serving customers and making a difference into our business practice.

“We feel like that’s how we’ve been able to take this small niche business for 10 years and build it into a place where we’ve put lights on thousands of houses, tens and thousands of bushes and trees ... miles and miles and miles of Christmas lights over the years,” King said. “We have three different teams during the (holiday) season.

“This is a really seasonal, fast business,” he said about the Christmas light industry. “We have a six- to 8-week period to get all these hundreds of houses with lights.

“Then in January, we come take them back down and pack them back up for the next year and bring them back,” King said. “We build the lights custom for each home and business.

Usually, “we are sort of on a leasing system, so we provide

the lights; we provide the installation; we provide the design; we provide the take-down and the storage of our lights,” he said. “So, there’s nothing for them to own, nothing for them to store. We’re a service company.”

However, there is permanent lighting available.

The company is open all year long, also providing lights for weddings and other events with normal hours from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, but “during the season, it’s a 24/7 operation,” King said. “If we’re not installing lights, we’re getting lights ready for the next day or testing lights. It’s a constant work effort.”

Christmas Lights Knoxville, located at 234 Morrell Road, Suite 356, West Knoxville, can be reached at 865-770-3555, Extension 3; ChristmasLightsKnoxville@gmail.com and at ChristmasLightsKnoxville.com