Kids, This Christmas Meet Your Match: Self Storage

Self Storage Unit Rentals become Santas Closets

Where do you hide your Christmas presents from the kids?

The recent stories about Black Friday shopping, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday are reminders that the holiday gift buying season is officially in full swing. Visions of folks coming home with a car full of presents or the delivery truck pulling up to the curb to drop off the internet purchases made this writer wax nostalgic about my younger days when every year my three brothers and I engaged in a yearly Yuletide game of hide and seek with our parents.

Every year my parents would hide the holiday gift purchases in a spot they thought was secure, and every year we would find the stash spot. Of course, my kids have inherited this trait and every year they seem to find the spot we have determined just couldn’t be discovered.

Self Storage Unit Rentals Make Great ‘Santa Closets’

Self Storage Units Are Great ‘Santa Closets’

Sadly for my gene pool, this fall I drove past a self storage business and had a brainstorm. As I looked upon the neatly organized rows of securely locked storage cubicles I suddenly realized I was looking at the solution to the annual find the gift hiding spot contest. Why not rent a self storage space?

Then I ran the idea past a couple of my friends and was hailed as a genius. It seems I don’t have a patent on this annual game as they too lamented their inability to find a gift hiding spot that couldn’t be discovered in their homes. A couple of buddies suggested we pool our resources and form a gift hiding conglomerate at a local self storage location.

So now I wonder if I am being cruel as the poor kids will ransack the house once again this year only to come up empty handed. Will they think they’re being skunked? That mom and dad are bust? Then I fast forward to the morning when they finally see their gifts which have been safely stored off site and all is well. The fact that the scene will be repeated at my co-conspirators homes just adds to my mirth.

The best thing about the whole experience so far is that I have a bit of extra space in that storage rental unit so I have permanently relocated a few of my personal belongings there for safe keeping and to free up a little room around the castle. Everybody is happy. Except the kids, for now.