This Saturday, Nov. 21, officially marks the start of the holiday season in Tomball with the 44th Annual Holiday Parade, sponsored by the Greater Tomball Area Chamber of Commerce.

This year’s parade will have an international flair to it, after the Chamber announced earlier this year that the theme would be “Holidays Around the World.”

“We are truly excited about this year’s theme,” Parade Chairperson Janie Aud-Riney said. “With Holidays Around the World ideas are endless. We anticipate some outstanding floats and cars this year. There is no limit with this theme.”

Parade organizers are expecting this year’s event to be “the biggest one ever,” and, as of last week, had received applications for approximately 170 entries.

Of those entries, 45 will be the contestants for the annual Miss Tomball Pageant, scheduled for later that evening at Salem Lutheran Church.

The Chamber recently announced that retired United States Air Force colonel and former NASA astronaut Steven Nagel will serve as Grand Marshal.

The former Air Force fighter pilot first flew for NASA as a mission specialist on the Shuttle Discovery in June 1985, then piloted the West German D-1 Spacelab mission in October 1985. On his third flight in 1991, Nagel was commander of the Shuttle Atlantis.

In all, Nagel completed four flights and a total of 723 hours in space.

Since his retirement in 1995, Nagel was named Deputy Director for Operations Development, Safety, Reliability, and Quality Assurance Office for the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The parade will kick off at 10 a.m. and travel west along Main Street through downtown Tomball.

In addition to the parade, the Chamber is also once again holding a Dutch Oven Cook-Off, which takes place in the parking lot of the Tomball Intermediate School on Main Street.

The cook-off offers contestants the opportunity to prepare Texas “range-style fare” in Dutch ovens over open fires. Teams will enter pots for judging in three categories: main dish, bread and dessert. The judging begins at 11:30 a.m. Prizes will be awarded in each category, and for “Best All Around.”

The day will also mark the opening of the Tomball Ice Rink, located near the Historic Downtown Depot on Market Street.

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