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Gnomes, Cookie Tins, & Snow Globes: What We Found At The State College Goodwill

Everyone seems to love thrifting nowadays, including me. It’s cheap, and you’re helping the environment by reusing a cast-aside product. That’s a win-win scenario!

In my two years at Penn State, I never got the chance to visit State College’s Goodwill until now. I ventured over to the Nittany Mall without looking for anything specific but left finding some things I definitely wasn’t expecting to see. Here’s a summary of my best finds:

Walking in and seeing these two right away sitting next to each other on the shelf made me jump, to say the least. I can’t even tell what these are. Gnomes? Elves? Who knows. But whoever once owned them, I don’t blame them for wanting to get rid of them. I wouldn’t want to walk into the home of the next person who owns this package deal.

Deck the halls? Now this looks like something out of a 5-year-old’s messed up imagination: Santa’s body turned into the Christmas tree. This just looks so wrong. But bonus points for some creativity…I guess.

This just looks like the Easter Bunny threw up all over it. I don’t think I’ve seen a holiday-themed wreath unless it’s Christmas or Autumn. Not sure if I’d expect to be inside a house with this hanging from the front door.

This Goodwill seems to just love the holiday season. Need a Christmas cookie box? How about a hundred of them? I’m not sure why there’s a whole entire section of shelves reserved for these specific boxes. Now you know where to go to store those cookies for Santa.

At first, I passed this and just thought it was an Olaf toy. But then, I was confused to see it surrounded by cups and containers. There’s a hole or some sort of missing piece in his stomach. Then I turned it around, and it looks like there’s a wind-up handle on the back of it, too. I have no guesses as to what this could possibly be.

Trigger warning: jump scare. I feel like a thrift store isn’t complete without a creepy-looking figure like this one. This looks right out of my worst nightmare. The ghostly white pale face with a funky-looking hat and outfit? Chills.

Another thrift store classic: snow globes. Out of the few this State College Goodwill offered, this one screamed “gift from my religious grandmother.” Hopefully, grandma doesn’t walk into this store and see that it’s now up for grabs.

This looks like a first grader went into art class with their stuffed animal dog, added some streamers to it, and then chewed it up and spit it out. Still, kids would stroll right past that, see a pink dog, and go nuts, so I guess it’s a good donation.

Need something to put your groceries in? Better head to Goodwill fast to grab this one. It’s the perfect size and very colorful! Just imagine seeing someone walk into a food store with this. It makes for a good toy for a little girl to play pretend, though.

Back at it again with the weird objects. The way this is shaped just kinda freaks me out because it’s odd. I can’t imagine anyone using this for decorative purposes. This is more of a dust collector I would forget about over the years.

Needless to say, State College’s Goodwill is full of some out-of-the-ordinary stuff. I’ll definitely be back around the holiday season, though. It obviously has enough decorations to make any broke college kid’s apartment chock-full of holiday spirit.

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About the Author

Emily Grill

Emily is a junior broadcast journalism major from New Jersey. She likes to think that being Italian and 5-foot tall are her biggest personality traits. You can probably catch her at Chick-fil-A at least two or three days out of the week. Feel free to contact her by emailing exg5292@psu.edu.

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