Rockefeller Center is a lot brighter.
A Mississippi family who lost their home in Hurricane Katrina -- and got a new house partly built with last year's Rockefeller Center Christmas tree -- was among the throng attending this year's lighting ceremony Wednesday.
An eight-ton, 72-foot Norway spruce was illuminated at 8:58 p.m. Wednesday in the center's plaza near the skating rink and the gilded statue depicting Prometheus bringing fire to mankind.
Tony Bennett, Harry Connick Jr., Faith Hill and the Jonas Brothers were among the entertainers who performed for television audiences and thousands of onlookers packed in to the streets surrounding the midtown Manhattan complex.
With temperatures in the low 40s at the time of lighting, many of the revelers huddled together in colorful hats, gloves and scarves.
The guests include Tracey Davison, 40, an assistant teacher from Pascagoula, Miss., and her four young daughters.
The family had moved into an apartment just two days before the storm ravaged their neighborhood near the Gulf Coast. Fleeing with just a few suitcases in tow, they lived temporarily with a friend, at her brother's, in a docked cruise ship and a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer.
Davison and Ashunti, 10, Nylah, 9, Majsa, 8, and Karly, 4, were chosen to receive a new Habitat for Humanity home that former President Jimmy Carter, among others, helped build. The three-bedroom, baby blue home was finished in September and the family moved in a couple of weeks ago.
Lumber from last year's tree was used to make two-by-fours that were placed in the walls and floors of their living room.
"It's kinda like Christmas before Christmas," said Davison. "It was a dream come true. We're very, very excited to be in the house."
This year's tree has been decorated with 30,000 energy-efficient LED lights on 5 miles of wire, topped with a massive crystal star. It was donated by the Varanyak family in Hamilton Township, N.J. The family owns a nursery in Mercer County.
While the first official lighting was in 1933, the first Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was put up two years earlier during the Depression by workers building the Art Deco complex.
In past years, the tree has been recycled after the holiday season in a variety of ways, including making toys for animals at the Bronx Zoo and being mulched for hiking trails.
Copyright Associated Press / NBC Bay Area
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