Candy Land

Last night was the Annual Brenham Lighted Christmas Parade, which has become a fun family tradition. I'm the chairman of the Germania Christmas float decorating committee, so the parade is also a big deal for me personally. Anyway, this year's parade theme was "A Candy Lane Christmas" and Germania's float theme was "Candy Land." The float features a Lollipop Forest, Peppermint Woods, Gumdrops, blue and green-colored playing pieces and a gingerbread house that puffed sugar-cookie scented smoke into the air. This year's float was by far the best one we've done, and I was very proud of it.

I was also very, very happy that I got to ride on the float with Kristi and the kids for the first time this year. This was Noble's second year to ride and Kayci's fourth, and I really wanted to experience it with them. I'm glad I did. Riding on the float is a lot different that watching it from the side or even walking along side it.

Kayci is an old pro now, so she knew just to sit in her spot and wait for the parade to start. Noble... not so much. It was a bit of a challenge to keep him contained on the float for the hour we were sitting on the float before the parade started. He did really well for awhile, but then he would get interested in things such as taking off his mittens and hat or just wanting to get down. He was fascinated by the smoke coming out of the gingerbread house. I have to admit that I was, too. But once we started moving, he calmed down and looked at the people going by - and he even waved a little bit, too.

So if you couldn't make it to the parade this year, we want you to know that we missed you and hope you can make it next year. But we also wanted to share some of the photos: