Christmas on the River was successful once again, bringing one of the largest crowds in the event’s history to Demopolis for the 43rd annual edition.

Demopolis Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Michael Kennedy said he felt it was a successful year for the event.

“From what I’ve heard, we had one of the larger turnouts that people can remember,” he said. “The only negative thing I’ve heard was about the length of the night parade.

“There were several factors that went into that, but we only had five boat drivers, so they had to unhook from one float to another, then go back down the river before coming back up. That just about doubles the time. Everything else went great.”

Kennedy added that the size of the day parade was impressive given the size of Demopolis.

“Being on the lead float, you could look back and there were floats as far as you could see,” he said.

“It was really great to see. There are 19 floats owned by the Chamber, plus all the others that were there. There was a lot of hard work from a lot of volunteers that went into making it a success.”

In addition to the parades, Jingle Bell Run organizer Johnny Brooker said there were approximately 135 registrations for the 5K run, and about 125 of those ran in the race.