The holiday lights of downtown Birmingham’s Regions Bank building are a seasonal treat – but something new is happening this year.

The bank will host a special lighting ceremony on Friday, beginning at 4:30 p.m., with lighting scheduled for 5:15 p.m.

The ceremony will take place at Regions Center Plaza at the northwest corner of 5th Avenue North and 20th Street North.

Each fall, the 30-story building traditionally lights up on the day after Thanksgiving, with lights in the building’s windows projecting two Christmas trees, a wreath and a Christmas stocking.

The windows stay illuminated through New Year’s Day.

The inaugural lighting ceremony will be hosted by Deno Posey, an executive vice president for Regions Bank and local performer. There will also be food trucks and other festivities.

The traditional lights go back about 40 years.

Construction on the building was finished in 1971, when it was shared by the First National Bank of Birmingham and Southern Natural Gas. A Sonat executive saw a building in Houston that had a similar “curtain wall” design used for a Christmas lighting display during the holidays, and he brought the idea to Birmingham. Regions Bank continued the tradition.

Crews begin working on the display in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving by installing gel sleeves over the light tubes in all the windows that will be part of the display. They follow design grids showing them which colors go on which windows to form the Christmas-theme shapes.

Regions said in a statement that, if anyone has already seen the building’s holiday light display, that was during a test to determine which bulbs needed replacement.