Making Room for What Matters: Thanksgiving with SpareBox Storage

Thanksgiving has a way of making everything feel a little more crowded. The fridge is packed, the counters disappear under mixing bowls, and suddenly every chair you own is drafted into service. At SpareBox Storage, this is the time of year when people start looking around their homes and thinking, “Okay… something has to move.”

A week or two before the holiday, we see a familiar scene: someone walks in with a photo on their phone of a “guest room” that hasn’t actually hosted a guest in years. There’s a desk, a treadmill, some plastic bins, and a stack of half-opened moving boxes. Now Grandma is coming to stay, and that room needs to become a bedroom again in about three days. They’re not ready to sell or donate everything, but they do want their family to have a real place to sleep. A small storage unit becomes the temporary landing spot so the bed can finally breathe again.

The same thing happens in living and dining rooms. All year long, those spaces quietly collect “later” items—extra chairs, folding tables, big serving platters, boxes that never quite made it to a closet. Then Thanksgiving plans solidify and reality hits: you need floor space, and you need it soon. Some people bring in their extra furniture and off-season decor and say, “I just want my house to feel open when everyone’s here.” The things they still care about go into storage for a while; the house goes back to feeling like a place you can move around in.

There’s an emotional side to this season too. Thanksgiving is one of those holidays that pulls memories out of the attic. We hear stories about boxes of handwritten recipes, holiday dishes that belonged to a grandparent, or the old dining table that’s too big for the current house but too meaningful to give away. When space is tight, but letting go doesn’t feel right, people will park those pieces in a unit at SpareBox Storage. They don’t have to choose between “keep forever” and “get rid of it today.” The decision can wait until after the rush of the holiday.

College students add their own flavor to the chaos. They come home with bags, books, and sometimes furniture that doesn’t fit anywhere anymore. Old childhood rooms are rarely empty; they’ve turned into home offices or storage catch-alls. Parents and students will sometimes share a unit just to keep the shuffle manageable—dorm items, extra clothes, and “I’ll need this next semester” boxes all in one spot instead of stacked in the hallway.

Small business owners feel Thanksgiving in another way: it’s the ramp-up to their busiest time of year. We see people bringing in boxes of seasonal inventory, pop-up displays, or extra packaging supplies. Their houses are already full of everyday life; adding a mini warehouse on top of that doesn’t work for long. A unit becomes the place where “holiday business mode” lives, so their living room doesn’t have to.

The people who seem the least stressed during the holidays aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest homes—they’re the ones who gave themselves a little breathing room. Sometimes that means tucking a few boxes and a spare couch into a unit. Sometimes it’s just getting the treadmill and those mystery bins out of the guest room. They label a few boxes—“guest bedding,” “Thanksgiving dishes,” “extra chairs”—drop them off, and suddenly the house feels lighter.

If you’re staring at your guest room, garage, or dining area right now and wondering how you’re going to fit both your stuff and your people, you’re not alone. This is exactly the moment when a lot of folks end up at SpareBox Storage, keys in one hand and phone photos in the other, talking through what can live somewhere else for a while. The holiday will still be messy and loud and full of half-finished conversations—that’s kind of the point—but at least you’re not climbing over boxes to get to the table.