“I low-key want to thrift it this year,” my brother said to me as we were driving around brainstorming gifts for our sister.

Before this conversation, my brother and I were wondering how we were going to find a Christmas gift for our sister. For the past three Christmases, she’s hated the gifts we’ve gotten her, giving us the same fake smile when she opened them. So this year, we were determined to find her the perfect gift. We had been asking her almost daily what she would want and she’d simply respond with, “surprise me.” So with no clear direction, we started trying to find her a gift that she’d actually like.

After spending a month trying to figure out the perfect gift for our sister, my brother and I had finally given up. Leading my brother to say, “I low-key want to thrift it this year.” Hearing this I let out a long sigh followed by a muttered, “why not, nothing else has worked.” So we went out to try to thrift our sister a Christmas gift. Day after day, we went into our local thrift stores after they restocked to try and find something that would finally excite our sister.

At first we thought that this was going to be just an easy way out to find her a gift. We quickly learned that we had been very wrong; we severely underestimated just how hard it is to thrift a good gift. Everything was either the wrong size or just something that she would’ve hated. This cycle of going into the thrift stores just to walk out with nothing went on for two weeks straight, leaving us closer and closer to Christmas all without a gift for our sister.

Two days before Christmas me and my brother met up once again to talk about our sister’s gift, or the lack of one we have. Annoyed by how he said we should just thrift it, I started mocking him by saying, “ oooo lets thrift it, lets thrift it.” But that led us nowhere. My brother eventually got sick of me and left. Once he left I stormed off to my room to think about what I could possibly get my sister two days before Christmas. While thinking I eventually drifted asleep. I woke up to a text from my brother. He sent me a picture of a vintage soccer tracksuit from my sister’s favorite soccer team. As soon as I saw it I knew he found the perfect gift for our sister. I told him to buy it immediately. That night we wrapped it up and put it under the tree. Come Christmas, she opened up the present and immediately threw it on jumping around with joy. Finally liking the gift we got her.