BELLE — The city of Belle has deemed its Old Fashioned Christmas event on Dec. 16 a success, with at least 300 people in attendance throughout the day.

Belle Alderman Emily Williams said on Tuesday morning that the Saturday event was better than she had hoped.

“Saturday went really well, besides the weather,” she said. “I think if we had a sunny day we would have had double the people. So many people came up to me on Sunday at the grocery store and said it was wonderful.”

Williams reported that all food trucks sold out of food. The weather did result in at least 15 vendors canceling the morning of the event, but she guessed about 68 were still present.

“It was so spread out from one side of the street to the other and the bounce house and ponies on Third Street,” Williams said. “The carriage rides were going the whole time.”

She noticed so many families walking around the free event with smiles.

Music, including Touch of Country and the Belle High School Bland played throughout the day, along with a performance by the Ozark Spirit Cloggers.

Around 4 p.m. at the intersection of Alvarado Avenue and Third Street, Williams crowned 4-year-old Maggie Mertz, daughter of Nick and Shelby Mertz, as Little Miss Christmas. She was gifted with a tiara, a bicycle and led the BCBA Parade of Lights.

“All the Miss Christmas contestants got dolls and coloring books and a bag of goodies,” Williams added.

The Little Miss Christmas Pageant was sponsored by Bob’s Frozen Custard.

Two bicycles were awarded to community members.

“Erica Smith had won a bike and said she was going to give it to a needy family,” Williams said. “An older gentleman also won a bike and plans to donate it to a church to give to a local family.”

Children met Santa throughout the day and received free gifts, purchased with community donations.

“The toys were really exciting. I didn’t know if we would have enough and then we had more than enough,” Williams said. “It was so exciting to see faces light up.”

Community support for the event was also overwhelming.

“We raised $5 short of $5,000 for the event from the community in less than eight weeks,” Williams said. “The council donated our monthly paychecks plus we had 42 sponsors for the event.”

Williams said she, City Treasurer Charro Reasor and Mayor Daryl White, Jr., planned the event together.

“We literally did everything together,” Williams said. “Sponsorships and everything together.”

Williams said they plan to make the Old Fashioned Christmas an annual event.

“It will be an annual event,” she said. “We are planning to make it an annual event and add new additions to next year. It was just so exciting. You work so hard at something and then don’t really realize it until I saw all the families smiling. It was worth all the hard work right here.”