Last minute Santa Hat tree topper

This year Christmas is a little befuddled in our house.  I won't bore you with the details.

Anyway, we didn't have a tree.  And I was OK with that, I thought.

Yesterday afternoon the Christmas Spirit visited Mrs. Scrooge and I decided we needed a tree after all.  Where would Santa put the gifts if we didn't?

A mad rush to the nearest craft store ensued.  The good thing is about being a procrastinator is that you get REALLY good deals on trees.
The down side is that decorations are in short supply.

Since our cute new little 4 ft tree is too small for our giant tree topper, I had a problem.

I internet surfed a little looking for quick tree toppers to make but had no luck.  I really didn't want an angel made out of paper plates.

On some decorating web site  - can't remember which one - I saw a Santa hat topper. C-U-T-E!
But no time to order one, I'm afraid.

My brain sprang into action.
I know we had a couple of old hats somewhere.

Here's what I did:
1. Measured how tall I'd need the topper to be.
2. Cut the hat to size - chopped off the bottom.
3. Trimmed off the white trim and reattached it to the new smaller hat.
4. I had to reinforce the top of the tree a little, since artificial trees have really flimsy tops.  I just stuck two wooden skewers in there.
5. I also had to wrap the top bit in ribbon to allow the hat to slide down and not get stuck on the pine needles.
6. I stuffed some of the fabric remnants into the hat to help the pom-pom stay up because it was flopping over.

I'm happy!