Britney Spears, fresh from her trip to NYC where she was on hand to participate in the Xmas tree lighting ceremony in Rockefeller Center which took place on Wednesday night, was on hand here in downtown LA to do the special honor of lighting the Xmas tree at the LA Live! entertainment complex last night. Here are a few pics of Brit Brit at last night’s event, who was joined by her father Jamie Spears and her young sons (wearing adorable matching outfits) Sean Preston and Jayden James:

Topping off a celebratory week that included her 27th birthday and the debut of her new CD Circus, Britney Spears was the surprise guest who lit the tree at Thursday’s launch of L.A. Live! for the premiere performance of Light of the Angels at the Nokia Theater. Sharing the Christmas spirit with her were sons Jayden and Preston and father Jamie – as well as host Adam Carolla and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Asked about her favorite holiday traditions, the pop star said being with family and tree decorating.

You gotta love that the Xmas tree for Los Angeles is a fake one made up completely of pretty lights. While NYC sticks to the old skool tradition of using actual trees, La La Land has to go the fake route … eh, that’s Tinsel Town for ya. Britney looked pretty amazing at last night’s “tree” lighting. She is one hot commodity right now and everyone is dying to get a piece of her (if you will). Ellen DeGeneres announced on her show that she will be “spending time with” Britney Spears “over the weekend” implying that the hanging out time will be taped for airing on her show sometime after. I understand that Britney will be jetting off to Japan very soon to do some promo work for the release of her new album Circus there. She’s bizzy, y’all … but appears to be handling it all very well. Folks have been very receptive and complimentary to her new music video for her titletrack single Circus which is a nice change of pace from some of the negative comments people like to level at her. After the jump, check out video from last night’s tree lighting ceremony in downtown LA including a nice introduction by Adam Carolla and the magic moment when Britney flipped the switch to light the tree …

I mean … the lighting of the tree wasn’t all that magnificent … what do you expect from a neon Xmas tree … but it’s great that our dear Britney was chosen to be the one to do the honors. I hope that she is able to get some much needed rest and relaxation before she has to jet off to the Land of the Rising Sun. She’s earned a little R&R I think.

[Photo credit: Splash News, Bauer-Griffin, X17; Source]