St Peter's Square:
The lights on the tall Christmas tree decorating St Peter's Square at the Vatican were officially switched on for the first time on Friday evening, during a public ceremony that was not attended by the Pope.
Decorated with hundreds of lights, gold and silver baubles and a giant star on top, the tree was illuminated for the first time at the public ceremony officiated by the president of the Governorate of Vatican City State, Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo.
It will stand next to the nativity scene in St Peter's Square until the end of the Christmas festivities.
The tree was donated to Benedict XVI by the town of Luson in the northern Italian province of
Bolzano.
The Norwegian spruce is thirty-four metres high and ninety-three years old, and originally stood at an altitude of 15 hundred metres, the Vatican said.
As well as the main tree, Luson has also donated fifty smaller trees which will be used to decorate various sites in the Vatican.
In a written statement Pope Benedict XVI said that Christmas tree enriched the symbolic value of the nativity scene.
Christmas trees have only been placed in the square since 1982, when Polish-born Pope John Paul II began the northern European tradition.