Crowds of thousands were also treated to performances by girl group The Saturdays, singers Taio Cruz and Peter Andre and a set by indie group, The Noisettes. The festivities were even attended by Mayor of London, Boris Johnson who addressed the crowd at a packed Oxford Circus.
Explore the pictures of the night
Before shooting off to the Leicester Square premiere, the stars of Disney's Christmas Carol took to the stages of each of the three London locations to pull the all-important levers and kick off London's Christmas shopping season. This year's lights on Oxford Street are based on the Disney's Christmas Carol theme, whereas Regent Street is adorned with simple white stars stretched across the sky.
After a slight "false start" which saw the lights turn on too early, movie legend Carey reminded the crowd of, "the importance, now more than ever, of peace on earth" and thanked the British people for their support.
Following the switching-on of the lights, the crowd took part in an official Guinness world record breaking sing-along, with over 1,400 participants smashing the record for most people to take part in a Christmas Carol. Led by world-famous Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli in Leicester Square, the rendition of Silent Night was beamed to the crowds in the other three locations on big screens.
MSN UK's creative solutions editorial team was there to catch all the action using the fantastic new Lumix TZ7. The shooting conditions were challenging: night-time, large crowds, bright Christmas lights. But using the camera's 12xoptical zoom we were able to capture the switching-on of the lights in all their glory. And it was seriously easy to use even in tough conditions. You can see the results for yourself. Here is a sampling of the photo collages we stitched together to show you. Note, we've used a Microsoft feature called Photosynth to create these mosaics, so you will need to download a small application to see our lovely Panasonic pictures.
