What Christmas is complete without a tree? Part of what I love about Christmas is how decorating the tree brings a family together. Old ornaments are revisited, new ones added, and lights are lovingly strung up. Like a cherry on a sundae, the tree topper finishes things off with a flourish. 
This was my son's second Christmas. At age 21 months he is starting to grasp the concept of it all, and so we wanted to make it special for him. My mom sent me some of my childhood ornaments, but we still needed a topper.
I thought his favorite pinwheel from World Market would do nicely as our tree topper, with its sturdy translucent plastic petals, and would convey the fun childhood spirit I wanted to capture. I stuck it down the top center, stake and all, and used twist ties to secure it inside the tree. Then I placed a few of the lights behind it and secured those, too. The result was a lovely warm and colorful glow. The whole family loved it and I think a tradition has been started.
My tree was in a corner, but if you want to try this with a 360 degree tree, maybe you could put two pinwheels back to back, or even four of them with a bunch of lights in the center. You want to be sure that the pinwheel petals let enough light through to get the effect you want.
Next year, I plan to try and attach a motor to the back of the pinwheel to get it to spin! That would be very cool! And our pinwheel, at $1.99, ended up as the most affordable, priceless ornament we could have asked for!
