The Christmas shopping season in Brookhaven proved robust in 2012, easily outpacing the performance of the year before.

Brookhaven retailers recorded sales tax collections in December of $510,014, according to totals recorded on a January report released by the state Department of Revenue.

That’s a huge increase over December 2011, in which the city only netted about $463,000 in sales tax.

Those December 2011 sales tax totals were a decrease for the city compared to past Christmas shopping seasons, but the 2012 numbers indicate that retailers had much healthier holiday sales in 2012.

Such a strong performance is also good for Brookhaven’s bottom line. City leaders prepared a budget using an estimate of $410,000 in sales tax collections each month. In the last year, the city had consistently outperformed that projection.

December was a big month for Brookhaven, but McComb and Natchez had a bigger month. McComb pulled in $543,000 and Natchez $524,000.

However, Mayor Les Bumgarner remains pleased that Brookhaven continues to be competitive with larger cities.

“I really believe our town is an overachiever,” Bumgarner said. “That is a credit to our businesses and citizens.”

The mayor monitors a list of 21 cities throughout the state he compares Brookhaven to each month based on sales tax totals.

On average, Bumgarner said the city ticks in at 10 or 11. However, for this latest round of revenue reports, Brookhaven came in at nine, said the mayor.

Brookhaven, for example, bested Clinton and Brandon, both of which had about $430,000 reported by retailers in tax revenue, and Ocean Springs, which collected about $475,000.

Neighboring Wesson and Monticello didn’t see such a spike, both falling slightly in the latest round of revenue reports.

Since July of last year, the city has earned a total of about $3 million in sales tax money. At this time last year, the city had accumulated about $2.9 million, so the city has continued to show growth over last year.