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Glite Dictionary
😃 To look very happy 🎄 To shine with lights
to light up like a Christmas tree

to light up like a Christmas tree

1 3.7
Become covered in many bright lights for decoration
  • idiom
translation icon : 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 illuminate
vsto light up like a Christmas tree
52 4.1

To make something bright or visible with light

is specifically about many decorative lights creating a dramatic display
to light up
vsto light up like a Christmas tree
52 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

Antonyms

to dim
12 2.4

To become less bright or make a light weaker

How Bright

to dazzle
6 4.1
to blaze
58 3.4
to light up like a Christmas tree
1 3.7
to light up
64 2.5
to shine
428 1.0
to glow
161 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'.