World's Largest Floating Christmas Tree Lights Up

Rio de Janeiro lights up the world's largest floating Christmas tree that uses 3.1 million lite bulbs and has a surprising "four season" decoration.

Published

6 months ago

Categories

World

Topics

South America, United States

Places

United States of America, Brazil, New York City, Rio De Janeiro

Transcript

The world's largest floating Christmas tree is lit in the heart of Rio de Janeiro to kick off Brazil's holiday season. Over 100,000 spectators watched as this year's tree changed in colors and forms to represent the four seasons. The metal structure is 85 meters tall, or 279 feet, and is illuminated by over 3 million light bulbs. If that's not enough of a spectacle, there's also a six-minute-long firework display to keep audiences enthralled. SOUNDBITE: Marcia Braune, Tourist, saying (Portuguese) "It was the first time that I saw the lighting of this tree and I think it was really beautiful, it was very emotional, I cried, I thought it was wonderful." The tree is recognized by Guinness World Records as the largest floating Christmas tree on Earth. In comparison New York's famous Rockefeller Center Tree is less than one-third its size adorned with just 30,000 lights -- but it's a real Norwegian spruce.