😃 To look very happy 🎄 To shine with lights

to light up like a Christmas tree

3.7

Become covered in many bright lights for decoration

idiom

: iluminar como un árbol de Navidad

Every night in December, the park lights up like a Christmas tree, drawing families to admire the decorations.

Examples

When the fireworks went off, the whole town lit up like a Christmas tree with colorful lights.
The city skyline lit up like a Christmas tree during the holiday season.
And my understanding is they used luminol on the carpet and it lit up like a Christmas tree, which detects the presence of blood, right?
There's a large glass map of the island at the front of the room that is lit up like a Christmas tree with various colored lights, each one with a number and identification code next to it.

Fiction book (1993)

Synonyms

to light up

vsto light up like a Christmas tree

62 4.1

Become suddenly very happy or make a place bright and sometimes scold someone strongly

focuses on many decorative lights and dramatic visual effect

to illuminate

vsto light up like a Christmas tree

53 4.1

To make something bright or visible with light

is specifically about many decorative lights creating a dramatic display

Antonyms

to dim

45 2.4

To become less bright or make a light weaker

How Bright

to dazzle

1 4.1

to blaze

27 3.4

to light up like a Christmas tree

3.7

to light up

201 2.5

to shine

409 1.0

to glow

197 1.2

Surface Forms

light up like a Christmas tree infinitive

lighting up like a Christmas tree present participle

lights up like a Christmas tree third person singular

lit up like a Christmas tree past

lit up like a Christmas tree past participle

Morphology

light + up + like + a + Christmas + tree

The meaning is compositionally derived: 'light' + particle 'up' (to become illuminated) combined with the simile 'like a Christmas tree' (an object commonly decorated with many lights) makes the resulting sense directly predictable. Although it relies on cultural knowledge that Christmas trees are brightly lit, that association is widespread, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will generally understand the expression.

Etymology

Light up like a Christmas tree comes from the picture of a Christmas tree covered in lots of bright bulbs that make it shine and stand out. So when a street, building, or object is decorated and becomes very bright, people say it 'lights up like a Christmas tree'.