15 Cool Christmas Trees From Around the World

Christmas trees are everywhere this time of year—in the mall, in the town square, in your living room. However, some cities around the world get creative and jettison the idea of what a traditional holiday tree looks like. After seeing the following 15 trees, you’ll never look at the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree the same way again.

1. FLOATING TREE // RIO DE JANEIRO

In the summer of 2016, Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas’s lagoon in Rio de Janeiro was the site of the Olympic rowing competitions, but in the winter it houses a 27-story Christmas tree weighing 542 tons. Every minute, the nearly 3 million lights (75 miles worth) change colors. The tree appears to float above the lagoon, because it's attached to 11 floats. During the weekends, the lagoon sets off fireworks and creates a carnival atmosphere around the tree.

2. GODZILLA TREE // TOKYO

In 2011, Aqua City Odaiba mall in Tokyo created a Godzilla-shaped tree, replete with glowing red eyes and steam billowing out of its mouth. ‘Zilla donned a Santa hat and had white lights strewn all over its green body. If the tree actually came to life, the mall—and Tokyo—would be in deep trouble.

3. LEGO TREES // WINDSOR, ENGLAND; SYDNEY

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Every holiday season, LEGOLAND in Windsor, Berkshire, England, builds its resort tree out of LEGOs as part of its Christmas Bricktacular celebration. The 26-foot tree is made from 300,000 LEGO bricks and takes four weeks to build. In 2015, an angel made from 4550 LEGO bricks topped the tree. Over in Sydney, in 2014, a LEGO tree was displayed in Pitt Street Mall. It was built from half a million LEGO bricks, weighed 3.5 tons, towered at 32 feet, and took 1200 hours to amass, becoming the largest LEGO Christmas tree in the Southern Hemisphere. But the largest LEGO Christmas tree ever award goes to London's St Pancras Station, whose 2011 tree measured 40 feet in height.

4. POINTE SHOES TREE // LONDON

Each winter, the English National Ballet performs The Nutcracker at the London Coliseum. For the 2015 season, dancer Amber Hunt had a brainstorm. “It all started by people asking me how many pairs of shoes dancers would use in a year,” she said. Turns out, it took 40 hours to stack 588 pointe shoes into the shape of a tree. “We had to drill over 1000 holes into the shoes so we could tie and hold them together on wires, and then we plated all the ribbons around the tree,” Hunt said. “We also added a pointe shoe star at the top.” It took 40 hours to complete the project.

5. EMIRATES PALACE HOTEL // ABU DHABI

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In 2010, the Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi created what’s supposedly the world’s most expensive Christmas tree. The artificial tree cost only $10,000, but the jewels that decorated it bumped the tree’s value to $11 million. Necklaces and earrings adorned the tree: 181 diamonds, pearls, emeralds, and sapphires. This year, though, the hotel’s gone back to a more subdued (a.k.a. jewel-free) tree.

6. GOLD DISNEY TREE // TOKYO

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Not quite as expensive as the Dubai tree, in 2012 jewelry store Ginza Tanaka in Tokyo offered for sale a “tree” containing 88 pounds of gold, that stood eight feet high and three feet in diameter. The store hired 10 craftsmen to create 50 gold cutouts of Disney characters that were engraved on the tree like ornaments. The whole tree, which was created to celebrate Walt Disney's 110th birthday, was worth 350 million yen, or $4.2 million.

7. CHURCHILL ARMS TREES // LONDON

During the spring and summer, the Churchill Arms pub in Kensington, London—which pays respect to Winston Churchill—covers its rooftop, windows, and exterior pub with an overwhelming array of 90 flowers and plants, like an unwieldy garden. For the holidays, though, they exhibit a swath of pine trees—80 to be exact. Several years ago they started with 30 trees, but this year have a record 80 trees and 18,000 lights. The pub’s interior is also filled with a lot of Christmas decorations, and random objects hanging from the ceiling. In 2013, Arms manager Gerry O’Brien told Daily Mail, “There’s no room for any more ,” but he apparently found more space.

8. MOUNT INGINO TREE // GUBBIO, ITALY

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Since 1981, instead of assembling one large tree, Gubbio, Umbria, Italy, has taken advantage of its trees on the slopes of Mount Ingino and outlined them with 300 green lights. The lighting display covers 130,000 square meters; the base is 450 meters wide and reaches 750 meters, or 2460 feet up the hillside. In recent years, Pope Benedict XVI has initiated the lighting ceremony remotely in Vatican City via an Android tablet.

9. UPSIDE-DOWN TREES // BOSTON

Liberty Hotel Boston/Facebook

The next best thing to an upright tree is an upside-down one. Every holiday season, the Liberty Hotel in Boston installs six inverted trees in its 90-foot rotunda lobby. The artful trees hang from beams, and are decorated with glowing lights.

10. CIRQUE DU SOLEIL TREE // LONDON

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In 2015, the St Pancras rail station/shopping center in London displayed a Christmas tree made from plush Disney toys, such as Mickey Mouse, Marie the cat from The Aristocats, and Dumbo. This year, the station presented a Cirque du Soleil tree as a means to raise money for Oxfam. The Amaluna Christmas Tree, which is named after Cirque’s show Amaluna (based on The Tempest), stands nearly 40 feet tall and includes a water bowl orb with moving underwater projections, showing bits of the show.

11. SHOPPING CART TREE // SANTA MONICA

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One of the more unusual trees, Santa Monica’s shopping cart Christmas tree is just that—a tree-shaped structure built from 86 carts that reach 33 feet. Anthony Schmitt founded the tradition in 1995 so he could communicate ideas of abundance, commercialism, and homelessness. The “tree” can be found on Main Street, in front of Edgemar, a mixed-used retail center.

12. ABSTRACT TREE // BRUSSELS

In 2012, Brussels's main square, La Grand Place, strayed from its customary pine Christmas tree and instead opted for something abstract—and controversial. The 78-foot tree was a light installation made out of steel-framed boxes. At night, the square treated people to a laser show. The cost of the tree was one-third less than a real tree, so it seemed like a win-win situation. But some people were outraged about the non-religious tree—named Xmas 3—with 25,000 people signing a petition to have it removed (it was taken down on December 28). “For people who want a traditional religious symbol, we have the nativity scene here in the square,” Brussels tourism councillor Philippe Close told the BBC. “For people who want modernity, we have this new tree.” Since then, La Grand Place has stuck with conventional trees.  

13. LOBSTER POT TREE // PROVINCETOWN

Provincetown, Massachusetts is home to a lot of lobsters, so it makes sense to use lobster pots to form a tree. Artist Julian Popko started the annual event 12 years ago when he borrowed lobster pots from local fisheries and displayed the tree in Lopes Square. Today, 112 lobster pots make up the two-story tree, which also contains 3400 LED lights, 120 red bows, and 46 plastic lobsters.

14. PUFF PASTRY TREE // JAKARTA

Being the “The World’s Tallest Choux Pastry Christmas Tree” seems like a strange accolade, but that’s how hotel The Park Lane Jakarta rolls. (MURI—the Indonesia World Records Museum—anointed the hotel the coveted title). Last year, Park Lane debuted the tree, made from 18,000 choux pastries (croquembouche). The tree stood 29 feet tall, and the hotel staff used more than 250 pounds of flour, 169 pounds of butter, 2112 eggs, and 12.6 pounds of sugar to make the pastries.

15. WINE GLASS TREE // SEATTLE

Kimpton Hotel Vintage Seattle/Facebook

The boutique-y Kimpton Hotel Vintage Seattle specializes in wine, with vineyard-themed rooms, vinos from local wineries, and, of course, a Christmas tree in the lobby constructed from wine glasses. The tree will probably make guests thirsty, so luckily the hotel hosts a daily wine reception for its guests, to squelch their thirst until they can reach Washington State's wine country, which is comprised of 700 wineries.