The In-Between Season: Making Space Between Thanksgiving and Christmas

That stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas has its own kind of mess, doesn’t it? The turkey leftovers are still in the fridge, the fall decorations are half-packed (or not packed at all), and there are new packages showing up at the door every day. The house is a mix of pumpkin, pine needles, and cardboard.

At SpareBox Storage, this is the time of year when people walk in, pull up a photo on their phone, and say something like, “Okay, I love my family… but my house can’t do this and Christmas at the same time.”

Right after Thanksgiving, a lot of homes are in “clean up from one holiday, prepare for the next” mode. The extra chairs and folding tables are still sitting in the dining room. The big serving platters are stacked on the counter because there’s no cabinet space left. Someone goes to put things “back where they belong” and realizes those spots were already overstuffed before any guests arrived. That’s usually the moment it becomes clear: if Christmas is coming in, something else has to go out for a while.

The tree is often the turning point. The box comes out from the attic or the back of a closet, and there’s nowhere to lay anything out. The fall wreath is still on the door. The Thanksgiving bin is parked in the hallway “just for today.” Add in a couple of kids running around, maybe a dog weaving between legs, and a few delivery boxes you haven’t opened yet, and suddenly walking through the living room feels like navigating an obstacle course. Around this time, people end up at SpareBox Storage with a trunk full of “good stuff” they’re not ready to let go of, but don’t want to trip over for the next month.

Gifts make things even more interesting. There are the presents you’re hiding from kids or partners, the oversized boxes from online orders, and that one gift that’s been sitting in your closet since last year because you never managed to deliver it. The usual hiding spots—under the bed, behind luggage, the top shelf of the closet—start to fill up. Before long, opening a door means risking the surprise or starting a small avalanche. Some people decide it’s easier to keep a few boxes of gifts, wrapping paper, and packaging in a small storage unit and treat it like “holiday HQ.” They stop worrying about someone accidentally finding their own present while looking for a winter coat.

Then there are the decorations themselves. Most people don’t want every holiday they’ve ever celebrated crammed into the house at once, but those things carry a lot of memories. Maybe you’ve got the “kid years” ornaments, handmade school crafts, four different sets of stockings, and a collection of wreaths that have followed you through several moves. The problem isn’t that any of it is bad; it’s that it’s all competing for the same few closets. Some families start rotating by season: fall and Thanksgiving boxes go into storage once the tree goes up, Christmas comes out, and the house doesn’t have to hold every era of your life all at once.

For students and young adults, this time of year can feel even more in-between. Some are back home from college for a few weeks, with suitcases, laundry, and odds and ends that don’t fit neatly anywhere. Old bedrooms may have turned into offices or storage rooms over the years. Others are between apartments or waiting to see where they’ll be living after the New Year. Their things can easily end up scattered between a dorm, a friend’s place, and their parents’ house. A lot of them end up using a unit at SpareBox as neutral ground—a place where their stuff can just sit quietly while everything else in their life is moving around.

Small business owners tell a different version of the same story. After Thanksgiving, they’re in full gear: shipping orders, doing events, stocking up for last-minute buyers. Their homes are already carrying a lot—family, daily routines, and now stacks of inventory, display racks, shipping supplies, and packaging material creeping into every corner. We see people come in and say, “I just need my living room back, but I still need all of this for the next few weeks.” For them, a storage unit is less about tidiness and more about being able to walk through their own house without stepping over boxes labeled “Holiday Sale – Fragile.”

There’s also a quieter emotional layer to this season. For some families, Thanksgiving might have been the first big gathering without someone who used to sit at the table. For others, this might be the last holiday in a home they’re getting ready to sell or leave. In those moments, certain objects stop being “stuff” and start feeling like anchors—ornaments from the old house, the serving dishes that always come out in December, a sideboard that doesn’t fit the current floor plan but holds a lot of history. People aren’t always ready to decide the fate of those things in the middle of everything else. Sometimes they carefully pack them, write a simple label on the box, and place them in storage just to create some breathing room around the decision.

By mid-December, most houses are juggling a lot at once: everyday life, leftovers from Thanksgiving (both the food and the chairs), Christmas in progress, and the usual “I’ll get to that later” pile that existed long before the holidays. The people who seem less overwhelmed aren’t necessarily the ones with giant homes. Often, they’re the ones who quietly moved a few pieces out of circulation. Maybe they took one carload to SpareBox Storage: a couple of bins of fall decor, that extra dresser no one is using, some sports equipment that won’t see daylight until spring, and a few mystery boxes from the garage. It’s not dramatic, but suddenly the living room can fit a tree and people at the same time.

None of this is about creating a picture-perfect house. Life still happens. Kids still leave shoes in the hallway, pets still steal wrapping paper, dinner still runs late. But there’s a difference between “holiday messy” and “I literally don’t have a clear path from the front door to the kitchen.” What storage does in this little window between Thanksgiving and Christmas is simple: it gives you somewhere else for a few things to live while the important stuff—people, conversations, a little bit of calm—takes over the main space.

If you’re in that in-between stretch right now, looking around and thinking your home is trying to be three seasons at once, you’re in good company. A lot of folks are doing the same thing: moving pumpkins out, bringing trees in, hiding gifts, stepping over boxes, and wondering where it all goes when January hits. Around SpareBox Storage, that’s exactly what fills the units this time of year—plastic tubs of decor, fold-up tables, stacks of chairs, a bike that won’t see the road until April, and a few carefully packed boxes that mean more than they look. The holidays stay at home. The overflow doesn’t have to.