It’s not just the first, but the second Friday in February! Time keeps flying! In Utah, it’s the year of no winter. All of January felt like spring. It’s really weird. I feel like I’m back in southeastern AZ where I used to live and could go outside in the winter with just long-sleeves and no coat. We haven’t had any snow since Thanksgiving weekend. So we’re praying for snow and rain, to which I add the little condition: mostly just in the mountains please. I do love not having to shovel the driveway but I also want to avoid a drought this summer.

I haven’t blogged in a while about thrifting so let’s do it…it’s Frugal Friday since I missed blogging yesterday about thrifting, to call my post Thrifting Thursday. Let’s work backwards and recap January 2026 and then December 2025. Then I’ll be caught up as I blogged about the November 2025 thrifting here.

On the first Friday in January, I attended my girlfriend/Veggie Gals’ post-Christmas party. This is the third year in a row where I’ve asked that we each bring a used book to exchange to accompany our potluck lunch. So with this book exchange I call it my girlfriends’ Jolabokaflod party. (Learn about what Jolabokaflod is here. It’s the Icelandic word for Christmas Book Flood.) I love doing this every year as something to look forward to in January. I wanted to get to the thrift store between Christmas Day and the day of the party but didn’t make it. So I just found some books around my home to give away and brought more than one in case some of the guests forgot. I was thrilled to get a book from one of our new Veggie Gals who happens to be one of my homeschooling mom friends from my Layton UT days. It’s about her parents’ escape from Estonia during post World War 2, written by her sister-in-law. Sounds so good! The photo above shows some of the books involved in our book exchange. Great reads! Below is the book I gave away. Not the God’s Free Harvest, but the other one, with the blue cover, Tissue Cleansing Through Bowel Management by Bernard Jensen. It’s been sitting on my shelf for decades and I thought it would be worth giving away for some laughs. I got the intended result! One of the Veggie Gals actually stole it from the original recipient, so that was fun.

I didn’t have time to go thrifting before this party, what with getting sick on Boxing Day but on the way home I did! I stopped at the American Fork Deseret Industries and got the above books. Oh my goodness, this was such a great haul! I got 17 books for only $13! This was probably my best thrifting-for-books day ever! Among the bunch:

-a book by Dinesh D’Souza which I’ll use for Morning Basket with my 16 year old son for homeschooling, called Letters to a Young Conservative.

-Christmas chapter books I’ll save to give next year to friends and family, including my “ministeree sisters” for my church congregation. (The women in my ward/congregation whom I am assigned to watch over as a ministering sister. So not my ministering sisters, as those are the ones assigned to me, but the ones I’m assigned to. I wish there was a quicker way to say that. “Ministeree sister” is the best thing I can come up with.)

-Christmas picture books to add to my collection, and to give some away. I already gave The Last Straw to my married daughter for our family’s post Christmas Jolabokaflod party. I only have one Jan Brett book so I was thrilled to find her gorgeous version of Twas the Night Before Christmas. I already have two versions of the storybook of that poem but how can I turn down Jan Brett for only $1?

–The Message, which I went looking for so I can give it away to friends and family. God provided and gave me three in two days! I gave a copy to one of my ministeree sisters and my ministering partner. Then I’ll give the third to my mom. It’s just such a great book to read every January and be reminded of what’s truly important. The story starts on Christmas Day so that also makes it fun to read in January.

-A Christmas Carols countdown book which I had been desiring in the previous weeks as a something to use for a music aspect in our December Morning Basket. It was as if God was saying, “Your wish has been granted. I sent your thrifting angels to bring this to you! Merry post-Christmas!” The author has a website here.

-The sequel to The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, as shown above! Yay!!! We watched the Dallas Jenkins’ produced movie based on this book last year and again this year. (See my review of it here.) Ever since then, for a year, I had been thinking, I’d love to find the sequel to that story, and just like the book I mentioned in the point above, this book too fell into my lap. We’ll be reading this for Morning Basket time.

-an L.M. Montgomery book I haven’t heard of! Along the Shore. To add to my other Lucy Maud books with the the title in the swoopy font from the 1980s. I’m saving these for my granddaughters.

-a book about how the Jewish people have affected us. It looks so interesting!

-a Louisa May Alcott Christmas story I hadn’t heard of.

-an abridged version of The Forgotten Carols. I have the regular book of it including the sheet music with the bright red cover, and then the picture book, and now this abridged version above. I have been wishing for this too, just to have a condensed version, since the picture book is not really the same story, and I don’t usually have time to read the whole thing that is the red cover book. God came through for me again!

-a copy of The Secret Santa book by Anne Osborn Poelman, which I was so thrilled to find! I found it in December and gave to to one of my ministeree sisters in a gift basket. I was hoping I’d find a copy sometime so I could have my own copy and read it too and I did! God provided for me again!

I enjoyed taking the slightly worn slip cover off the book before I gave it to her to give a an old-fashioned classic book vibe to it. Then I tied it up with a bow. It looked so festive in the basket of goodies I gave to her, as shown below. I started reading the copy I found for me, and after one chapter decided to tuck it way with my Christmas books to get out after Thanksgiving 2026. I’m looking forward to finishing it! I also gave her a cookbook since she told me likes trying new recipes, it’s the book wrapped up in the back of the basket. Then a copy of The Giver of Holy Gifts and the Life of Our Lord by Dickens. Plus some new hot pads from the dollar store, a new candle from the dollar store, a slightly used Christmas-y mug that I already had, and some candy and nuts.

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OK, back to my January thrift hauls.

On Saturday January 3 I went to the Provo Deseret Industries and found the goodies above.

–Cranberry Thanksgiving! I have been wanting this for years!!, to add to my Thanksgiving picture book collection. Hooray!

-more Christmas books! I was wanting one more Nativity themed book to fill the space above and I found one! Plus a patriot-themed book for my Independence Day collection. Then I got the Little Golden Book with a vintage Santa Claus. I had just seen this book in a YouTuber’s video of a thrift haul, resulting in a tinge of thrifting envy, so finding it for myself was a super nice surprise! Christmas With the Prophets I checked out from the public library over ten years ago and have thought it would be nice to get. So again, a nice surpise!

–Bathroom Book Volume I to replace the one I bought years ago for my husband for Father’s Day which somehow got lost in the past three moves. I got Volume II after moving back to Utah. So now balance is restored for that set! Yay! I have them both on a bookshelf in my bedroom now, LOL, not the bathroom. They are books that condense the world’s greatest books into one page summaries. So awesome!

–Salt Sugar Fat which I started listening to last fall and want to finish this year! It is the book to read if you want to know the dark side of the conspiring minds in the food manufacturing industry in the last days. This book is required reading at many universities, for good reason.

-the Eyres’ book for having “The Talk” about the birds and the bees with your children. We’ve always checked it out from the library. It’s about time we had our own copy, even though we’ve had the Talk with all seven of them by now. But now we can have it to remind us to do the follow-up talks with the youngest and whoever else of the unmarried children will listen to us :-).

–Grandfather’s Gold Watch, which is a picture book that goes with Pioneer Day in July! I blogged about it here. Now I have a picture book to read to my grandsons about pioneers when I see them close to Pioneer Day.

-One of my adult sons told me, just the Sunday before this thrifting trip, that he is in a point in an exclusive relationship with a girl that he’s never been in before. He wants to figure out if she is really the one to marry, and at the same time, he wasn’t sure what to talk about with her. He was asking what kinds of conversations to have with her. So God guided me to this book above. Another thrifting angel moment! He was happy to receive it!

That’s it for January’s thrift hauls! I haven’t done any thrifting since that first Saturday in January. I’ve decided I need to get rid of a bunch of stuff before I do any more thrifting, and I have and will continue to do so before I go thrifting again.

Now here are pics of December thrift haul items.

My son-in-law was thrilled to get the Celebrity Chef game. I was so thrilled to find it! I immediately thought of him when I saw it, as he is a foodie. He loves food and he loves to cook, especially for an audience. (My daughter is so lucky! and I’m so lucky as his mother-in-law! I love asking him to bring food to family dinners.) Anyway, it was $4 at the Provo D.I. I had so much fun opening it up and fixing it up before I wrapped it for one of his tree gifts. It needed a bit of erasing of pencil marks, and throwing away some of the pages in the paper pad that were written on. Then one of the little bags of the tokens was torn so I replaced that. I have a stash of mini-ziploc type bags for such a time as this. I gave the Sarah Palin book to my mom for her birthday. Then a few more books to help with homeschooling and family life.

Here is a little peek into what the Celebrity Chef game looks like.

I just love the tokens that are miniature kitchen gadgets! They are so cute!

Here is what some of the cards look like. The cards below show my favorite category: one of your opponents draws the card for you. Reading the card, the opponent tells you what type of dish it is, and the ingredients involved. Then you have to guess what the dish is.

At one of our Sunday dinners in January, my son-in-law said that he took my oldest grandson, his firstborn, out on a dinner date to Tucano’s, a restaurant that specializes in grilled meat. He took the deck of cards from this game with him for them to play with while dining. When we had our January family birthday party he still had the cards in the car so he brought them and quizzed me on a few things. That was fun! I plan on doing a lot more with him. I’m delighted that’s he’s already had fun just using the cards so far.

My second daughter asked for pajama pants for Christmas. I really wanted to find her some that don’t have a drawstring waist. I hate drawstrings in pants and figured she probably does too. Do you know how hard it is to find those? Even on amazon. I went thrifting with the intention of finding some and I did! as shown above. Along with a picture book for January (Snow Angels), a Little Golden Book about a classic tale to read to my grandchildren (Three Billy Goats Gruff, it’s nostalgic since my first grade class acted out that story) and a chapter book of short Christmas stories. I already had it and I love it so I got this one knowing I would give it to someone. I finally decided to give it to my married daughter. I love the vintage 60s cover.

Above is my next to the last thrifting trip of December. The photo shows a combo of two thrift hauls back to back from the Provo DI and the Orem Savers. My BYU-attending son was in a local production of the Nutcracker, starring as the Russian prince. I had just seen him perform in that role the night before and then the very next day I was thrilled to find a Nutcracker shirt that was only $3 to give to him! I was going to roll it up for his stocking but then I decided it would be a tree gift. The secret recipes cookbook, the Secret Santa book, the Dickens’ Life Of Our Lord, and the Giver of the Holy Gifts book all went to one of my ministeree sisters, as I mentioned above. I loved finding another Reader’s Digest songbook, that’s the lime green book in the upper right. It’s the Family Songbook. I was going to give the Food Lover’s Companion to my foodie son-in-law but then I decided to give it to my ballet-dancing son. I had just learned because of his gift wishlist that he likes cooking food and wanted food prep items. Maybe it’s because he now cooks regularly with his girlfriend? Fun fact: she played Clara in the same Nutcracker production that he was in.

I went into those trips hoping to find the following items and I did:

-a big basket to put the presents in that I gave my grandsons, mentioned in last month’s blog about my November thrifting here, it’s shown below with the books and other stuff I got them, wrapped up. I also got a black box for the same purpose. I found the black box first and got it in case I couldn’t find a basket big enough. I decided to let my daughter choose which one she wanted to store the gifts in. I want these items to stay in the same place at their home so they don’t get lost. I was going to make a sign that said, “Boys’ Adventure Box” but ran out of steam. Anyway, she took the box, which I do think is better to store all the gifts in, because it has a lid and takes up less space. I kept the basket so now I’m going to use it either for my Morning Basket or to store books, my laptop, and my iPad.

Here’s what the basket looked like with the grandsons’ gifts on Christmas morning.

-a pretty basket for the gifts I gave my ministeree sister, it’s the green thing on the right

-another Christmas picture book, illustrated by the guy, Mark Kimball Moulton, who illustrated The Visit, the backstory of “A Visit from St. Nicholas/’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” which I mentioned over here. This one that I found on this trip is A Cricket’s Carol, which is a sweet story about an orphan boy who finds a family for Christmas. I enjoyed reading it to my grandsons.

-some little Christmas boxes

-some Christ-centered paper to cover just-mentioned boxes, in a pad that was less than half-used. One of the sheets is below. I also used some of the paper to cut into tags for gifts.

I had bought some knock-off Lego sets of a Santa, a Christmas tree, and a snowman for the grandsons to play with on Christmas Eve while we discussed the names on the Immanuel Wreath. I wanted some pretty Christ-centered Christmas boxes to put them in. I also found a cute little basket to put all the boxes in. God came through for me again with the boxes and the paper to cover the boxes with. Praise God!

Remember my haul at the end of November? I blogged about it here. Below are the photos of the gifts making their appearance on Christmas Day. My son was thrilled with the Disney Songbook I found for $2 and the Food Lover’s book. Yay!

One of the sweetest things I got that day was a praise/compliment from my married daughter, as we ate our Christmas Day brunch after the gifts were unwrapped. She said, “You’ve done it again Mom! Thanks for orchestrating a great Christmas!” Dear, appreciative words spoken from one mother to another. Last year, after Christmas, I decided I wanted to thrift through the year to find Christmas gifts that fit my people’s personalities.

I feel so satisfied with what I found, and look forward to thrifting for Christmas gifts this year too! Not every thing was thrifted but what I found complemented super well with what I bought new. I saved a lot of money so I’m thrilled with that. I hope you join me thrifting this year! Feel free to share any thrifted treasure you’ve found lately in the comments below.