one of the many highlights of the holiday season in rio de janeiro is the opportunity to experience the lighting of the floating christmas tree in the rodrigo de freitas lagoon.

a tradition since 1996 it is the official start of the holiday season in rio and brazil. holding the guinness book of world records as the world's largest floating christmas tree, first in 1999, again in 2007 and then, beating its own record once again in 2013, the first tree had an impressive 1.5 million lights, weighed 90 tonnes and stood 250 feet (50 meters) tall. the last world record tree contained over 3.3 million lights, it was close to 280 feet (85 meters) tall and weighed 542 tonnes.