I pull into Pauline’s driveway, excited to talk to her about some ideas to think of for our christmas sweaters. Standing beside her, she doesnt seem to be as excited as I am. Face in her phone, not even saying ‘hi’ to me.

“Um helloo..?” I say to her, because it seemed she had no idea I was standing right beside her.

“Oh hey Katie! I low-key want to thrift it this year.” Pauline says as she sends a text to her boyfriend about the christmas sweaters. I want to do christmas sweaters a different way this year.” she says. I look at her confused.

“What kind of different are you talking about?” I ask her, feeling kinda flustered that she didnt talk to me last night at all about changing things up this year.

“I was thinking that we thrift our sweaters this year instead of making them from scratch.” She says. “It will feel more heartfelt knowing that we are picking out christmas sweaters that have been passed down from other people.”

“Thrifting christmas sweaters? But we usually make our own sweaters and we buy all the cute accessories for them.” I say to her with disappointment.

Each year we go to a few different stores, like Hobby Lobby, Michaels, and Party City and we find little ornaments, felt letters, and sparkles, tiny things to deck out our ugly matching Christmas sweaters. But this year, Pauline wants to thrift instead.

“It was fun hunting for supplies, but it takes so much time, money and driving as well. I don’t like wasting my gas either, driving to all these places, and buying everything adds up.” She explains.

“If we just thrift matching ugly Christmas sweaters, it would be so much easier, quicker, and cheaper.” Speaking with firm assurance.

Pauline is the bossy one, she’s usually the one running the events and planning everything, which is fine because I usually don’t care enough to put effort into any plans. I do appreciate her 90% of the time, but the other 10% of the time she just kinda puts me on edge. She is definitely the kind of person that I couldn’t be around for more than a few hours at a time.

“Thrifting is pretty fun, I am all for it.” I say, trying to stay positive and keep our tradition alive. “Even if it’s less creative, it will still be exciting to explore different thrift stores.”

“That’s the spirit, Katie!” She says to me,

Honestly, it’s so annoying the way she talks to me. Her voice is so high pitched that it sounds fake sometimes. The only thing keeping me sane is the fact that she puts so much time and effort into these things. I can deal with it, I’ve been dealing with it since middle school.