The 8th Day of Patmas!

From 2010...

On the 8th Day of Patmas, I give to you…8 Cool and/or Famous Christmas Displays!

One of the best parts of Christmas is the lighting! Christmas lights are amazing, and loads of fun. They bring a very festive atmosphere to wherever they are, and can be very pretty and/or creative! My parents have a giant, inflatable penguin in their front yard right now…and it is my favorite part of Christmas. Christmas does not begin until the penguin is in the front yard.

Sadly, our penguin is not famous. However, these 8 Christmas Displays will draw crowds from all over the world, just to see them!

1. The Osbourne Family Spectacle of Lights in Disney World, Florida: Since 1995, the Osborne family has been blanketing Disney's Streets of America in glittering lights. Every ten minutes or so the lights dim and then dramatically spring back to life, flawlessly choreographed to holiday music. Sometimes the show is even capped off with a flurry of snow.

2. Rockefeller Center in New York City: Tens of thousands of people crowd the streets for the lighting of the iconic Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, a Norway Spruce illuminated by 30,000 lights and crowned with a Swarovski crystal star. This Christmas lighting display tradition has been going on since 1931, when Depression-era construction workers strung cranberries and a few tin cans on a small tree. Today, the entire plaza around the Rockefeller Center is decked out in Christmas cheer, including the famous ice rink.

3. Macy’s Christmas Window Displays in New York City: The windows in front of Macy’s every Christmas are decorated with Christmas scenes. Since they’ve been doing this pretty much forever, it’s become rather famous, and something to check out if you are in NYC for the holidays!

4. The Lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans: Each Christmas, the hotel lobby becomes a fantasy fairy land of angel hair and Christmas trees stretching a full city block. This hotel was damaged rather extensively in Hurricane Katrina, and finally reopened its doors, and Christmas Display, in 2009.

5. The National Christmas Tree in Washington D.C.: A large tree near the White House is lit up during a televised event, and a path featuring other lighted decorations that leads up to the National Christmas Tree is dubbed the "Pathway to Peace." The event started in 1923, when President Calvin Coolidge lit a 48-foot fir tree decorated with red, white and green bulbs as a quartet from the U.S. Marine Band performed.

6. Downtown Rochester, Michigan: The entire downtown is covered in lights for the Holiday Season in what is called the Michigan Light Festival. There are so many lights that they have to start stringing them up in September, and then have a big lighting ceremony right after Thanksgiving. Pretty impressive.

7. The Miracle on 34th Street in Baltimore, Maryland: Now in its 62nd year, thousands of people descend on this block of row houses to witness the fantastic lighting display known as "Miracle on 34th Street." Christmas light displays on 34th Street-unofficially dubbed "Christmas Street" during the holidays-are as quirky as Baltimore itself. Each house is different, including one with trains circling the rooftop and another with Christmas trees made from hubcaps. A true labor of love, residents light up the street on their own dime and also perform their very own ball drop on New Year's Eve.

8. Hyatt’s Extreme Christmas Home in Fort Lauderdale, FL: A new 24-foot sign that reads "Believe in the Magic of Christmas" is only the latest addition to this locally famous home. Kathy Hyatt says her family begins preparations for their holiday production in August, with September and October devoted to stringing more than 150,000 lights, assembling a Ferris wheel and testing a small army of lighted Christmas figurines.