Battle of the Los Angeles area Christmas trees

The battle of the L.A. area Christmas trees is heating up. The contenders:

THE GROVE: 110 feet tall -- and quite a feat. Los Anjealous has a step-by-step account of how The Grove gets its tree up (hint: plenty of PVC pipe).

SOUTH COAST PLAZA: The Costa Mesa mall has a slightly shorter tree, but it looks a little more genuine. According to the OC Register: "The 96-foot-tall white fir from Mount Shasta arrived this morning, and a 200-foot-tall crane lifted it into its base in Town Center Park, in front of the Westin South Coast Plaza."

FASHION ISLAND: The arch rival in the Orange County tree game, the Newport Beach mall's 115-foot-tall white fir tree was unveiled this year by Cathy Rigby.

L.A. CITY HALL: Direct from Mt. Shasta, the tree is framed by the architecture of the building.

LA LIVE: The downtown entry is the new kid in town, a 52-foot-tall digital Christmas tree. Construction of the tree began in an industrial area of Moorpark, but moved to the plaza outside the Nokia Theatre, just across from Staples Center, where it will reside for most of the holiday season. According to a news release from AEG, which owns Staples Center and L.A. Live, the contemporary steel "holiday tree sculpture" is the centerpiece of "the most technologically advanced holiday celebration in the world" -- a seven-minute light display that also involves 60 angels, each 10 feet high, adorned with about 75,000 lights.

AMERICANA AT BRAND: The 100-foot-tall tree was unveiled with help from R&B and soul singer Peabo Bryson.

THE PENINSULA: The Beverly Hills hotel's tree isn't the largest. But "The Tree of Hope" has a big celebrity factor. From the hotel: "Tree Lighting will take place at 7:00 p.m. [tonight] with a presentation by actress and model Daisy Fuentes, well known for her role as an MTV VJ and the designer of the new “Daisy Fuentes” clothing line featured on Oprah." Other guests of honor, according to the hotel, will be "Sid and Marty Krofft, producers of scores of popular television series from the '70s and '80s and this summer’s feature film "Land of the Lost," starring Will Ferrell, and their most memorable puppet character, H.R. Pufnstuf."

--Shelby Grad

Photo: City Hall's Christmas tree. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times