New World Record: Christmas Tree Lights

If you're like me, you probably spent part of this past Thanksgiving weekend setting up your Christmas trees and holiday decorations. But I'll bet you probably didn't put over half a million lights on your tree, like this guy in Australia did.

Yes, that's right: This Christmas tree, in downtown Canberra, Australia, contains 518,838 twinkling lights, and according to this story, that's enough to set a new Guinness World Record, breaking the previous one set by Universal Studios in Japan.

The story says, "The 22-metre tree set the new record with a total of 518,838 twinkling lights, beating the 36-metre Japanese tree that had set a new benchmark of 374,280 lights last month, local media reported. A local lawyer and businessman, brought together various volunteers including an electrical engineer, structural engineer, welders, carpenters, masons and steel fixers to put together the tree display, topped with a 1.5-metre star filled with 12,000 glowing bulbs."

Yeah, that's a lot of lights. Our tree has slightly less than that-- I put up four whole strings, which gives our 7-and-a-half foot tree a total of around 300 whole lights. Clark Griswold, I'm not. Check out what this record-setting tree looks like...