High-watt holidays

When money is no object, the displays grow and grow

Neighborhood and small town displays -- even those of single residences -- bring a sense of the season that is intimate and cooperative. But what about those really big displays -- the ones that are so well-known TV news crews are on hand every year to cover the throwing of the switch?

Rockefeller Center is a prime example. This year, actor Bill Cosby performed the lighting of a 74-foot, 73-year-old Norway spruce, the 65th annual lighting of the Rockefeller tree. The tree holds 26,000 lights.

And at the White House, decorated throughout with trees, gingerbread houses, a hand-crafted menorah and other seasonal accoutrements, the theme is "Santa's Workshop." The official White House tree, in the Blue Room, is an 18-1/2 foot Fraser fir from North Carolina.

For those with an electrical pyromania, a trio of Georgia sites provides all the dazzle without the drain on one's own electric bill. Just east of Atlanta, Stone Mountain Park comes alive with an elaborate display of lights glittering through the trees around the 3,200-acre park -- some casting reflections of elves and reindeer and other creatures of the season in the park's lake.

Around the base of the mountain are light displays of cold north wind blowing, a street draped with dangling strands of lights called "Snowflake Lane" -- even a Yuletide laser show.

An hour or so north at Lake Lanier Islands Resort, the Fifth Annual Magical Nights of Lights is dubbed "Georgia's largest animated holiday light spectacular." A six-and-a-half mile drive passes down Teddy Bear Lane and over Icicle Bridge and through the Sailboat Regatta and the Northpole Express. There are millions of lights along the winding route through the 1,200-acre resort by the lake.

Southeast of Atlanta, Pine Mountain's Callaway Gardens presents a five-mile drive through a Fantasy in Lights. The display includes topiaries and florals, along with the Callaway Christmas Village, filled with crafts, food and entertainment.

Georgia has its share of attention-getting seasonal displays, but nothing quite compares with a city in neighboring Tennessee. Gatlinburg, gateway to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, is shimmering with lights from November until February with giant 20- to 60-foot high displays custom-made for the city, many animated.

Visitors entering the city on the north end pass through a 200-foot long tunnel of lights, but after that, you'll want to park the car and hop a 25-cent trolley at the Chamber of Commerce Welcome Center for a tour of this amazing exhibition.

There are chandelier archways across the streets, a 28-foot bell tower of light, and the city's lighting festival mascot, Gatlinbear, who pops up on the river fishing, waving at several intersections, and making hot cider at a mountain still.

After New Year's, the Smoky Mountain Lights become Smoky Mountain Romance -- through February, the lights celebrate Valentine's Day in the town that boasts more weddings performed than Las Vegas.