Lowell had it's City of Lights Parade a couple of weekends ago with marching bands, old cars, brownies in costumes, cops on motorcycles, floats from various groups, Shriners driving tiny autos and the big man himself Santa! The culmination of the hour and 1/2 parade was the lighting of City Hall and the Christmas tree at the mill I work at.
The tree is built around a capped 220 foot smokestack ( sometimes called urban redwoods) with a 12 foot high star at top, it is one of the largest artificial Christmas trees in the world and at one time held a Guiness record. 32 strands of aircraft cable with 170 bulbs on each strand making a total of 5,440. This fall we rewired all the strands with new electrical wire and sockets along with LED bulbs which are much brighter than traditional bulbs and should last over 20 years and be cheaper to light. Each autumn we uncoil the strands, twist in the bulbs and hoist them up to steeple jacks at the top, and each January we reverse the process and store it away till next year.