HolidayFilter: Help us top our tree!

December 12, 2008 12:35 PM

We've gone and done it. My partner and I bought a beautiful tree for our apartment. We've decked it to the nines, he's used his chaos magic to cast spells preventing the darling cat from disemboweling our holiday house-guest...but something's not quite right. Our tree has no topper! We've looked for inspiration here, here, and even here, but we're still stumped.

We're both agnostic, cash drained (from graduate school application fees, yeesh!), and wanting to make a fantastic topper for our first Christmas tree. This is the tree.

We want something creative, non-religious, shiny, colorful...heck, we're open to (almost) anything. If it might inspire you, he's a social neuroscientist, and I'm an anthropologist studying emergent media, identity, and cognition.

Brain? Cat on a rocketship? Let's make it happen!

posted by a lot is two words to home & garden (20 answers total)

You should use Leonardo's Vitruvian Man, printed onto nice parchment paper and pasted onto a firm backing, like foam-core. Sciencey, pretty, and HOT NAKED DICK. Ho ho ho!
posted by Greg Nog at 12:45 PM on December 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

I like to celebrate the madness of the Christmas season by topping my tree with my plush Cthulhu doll.
posted by Zaximus at 12:53 PM on December 12, 2008

You could do something cool with this DIY Moravian star. Inexpensive and doesn't require too much crafty skill, either. I'm sure you both have professional publications/conference mailers sitting around that would be perfect for this project. With the right images, it could be quite interesting.
posted by MonkeyToes at 12:57 PM on December 12, 2008 [2 favorites]

One of these.
posted by essexjan at 1:05 PM on December 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

Flying Spaghetti Monster?

Alternatively, you could say that your tree is topped by the Invisible Pink Unicorn.
posted by giraffe at 1:14 PM on December 12, 2008 [2 favorites]

Dude, Glinda from the Wizard of Oz.
posted by mattbucher at 1:18 PM on December 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

The first topper on this link is sorta cute:
20 DIY Tree Toppers
posted by pghjezebel at 1:26 PM on December 12, 2008

Last year we realized, too late, that we had not obtained anything for the top of our tree. Our middle son grabbed the leftover hallowe'en skull (ceramic) and we put that up top. Bonus points because it has eye holes that we shine LED lights through.

This year, all three kids INSISTED that we use that instead of something more 'traditional' because "we're cooler than everyone else this way".

Look around your living space and find something you both like - simple, fancy, weird - and toss it up there. Make it a tradition to pick something new each year, perhaps!
posted by VioletU at 1:31 PM on December 12, 2008 [2 favorites]

May I recommend a giant foam finger? Your grad school bookstore may have one.
posted by the littlest brussels sprout at 1:38 PM on December 12, 2008

I'm a big fan of Santa on the tree. Ours is a wooden one sitting on a crescent moon, but you can make one pretty easily with the instructions here. Or top the tree with a Santa Hat for a festive, easy look.
posted by saffry at 1:45 PM on December 12, 2008

When my husband and I first got together we had no tree topper and so we made a simple cardboard star covered in tin foil and attached to the tree with a paperclip. Ten years later we still have it, although we don't use it as a topper anymore, we just hang it like an ornament. But then again, we tend to appreciate the classics.
posted by threeturtles at 1:52 PM on December 12, 2008

A mitten! It's so.. wintery.
posted by Ugh at 2:42 PM on December 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

My grandparents have a circle of Styrofoam on top of their tree with a yellow star painted in the middle. They have had that "star" for 50 years and its still the best tree topper there is.
posted by lilkeith07 at 2:52 PM on December 12, 2008

Use something light, and that's in keeping with your other ornaments and decor. I can't make out the ornaments on your picture and you didn't describe them. :-(

On our wimpy tree, the very top is very bendy. Our toppers are too heavy for it, and they make it fall to one side or another. I abandoned them and used one of the ornaments, with extra lights up there to illuminate it and make it special.
posted by Robert Angelo at 3:52 PM on December 12, 2008

If it might inspire you, he's a social neuroscientist, and I'm an anthropologist studying emergent media, identity, and cognition.

Like the skull...what about something like this? With the tree acting almost like a spinal column...
posted by Weighted Companion Cube at 4:14 PM on December 12, 2008

make a decoration out of those little foil-wrapped chocolate bottles of booze. and then, after Christmas - you eat them!
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 4:56 PM on December 12, 2008

Why not just make a big (ish) origami star? You can use plain white photocopier paper, or doubled over aluminium foil.
posted by DarlingBri at 6:26 PM on December 12, 2008

we used to have a handmade wizard who went on top of the tree. Mom mailed him to me my first Christmas in the Navy :)
posted by legotech at 6:30 PM on December 12, 2008

We use a Power Ranger action figure that the nephew left at our place about 10 years ago.
posted by nenequesadilla at 10:43 AM on December 13, 2008

Like the skull. However, you might consider an owl. A life-like craft-store owl covered with fake feathers or a plush toy puppet.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 5:03 PM on December 13, 2008