North Pole How-To
  

We saw a north pole at Wal-mart similar to this one, and figured we could make one for much cheaper. As I recall, the retail one cost around $50. We made this one for under $10 using PVC, posterboard, one plastic ornament, felt and christmas lights. It turned out to be a great, easy Christmas project. Click on a picture to enlarge it.
Becky wrapped masking tape around this length of PVC pipe, then painted the entire pole red. When she took the tape off, after the paint dried, it makes a nice striped pole

 

For the ball on the top, we simply got a gold ornament and hot glued it to the top with a hot glue gun

 

The sign itself is blue posterboard. We printed letters on the computer, and used that as a template to carve the letters into the sign. Using an exacto knife Becky took just the top most blue layer of posterboard off. We then poked holes through for the christmas lights to shine through. We then added some felt for snow on the top