Holiday Safety for Home and Family

As we approach Christmas and the start of another new year, it's important to do what we can to ensure that our holidays are happy and our families are safe. This week we offer a number of tips about safety for travel, shopping, decorating and more. Take a look through these articles for your own peace of mind and your family's safety. Don't be the family that's featured in the news over Christmas because a holiday fire destroyed their home or some other disaster befell them.

Help to Make Safety a Tradition for your family this holiday season. (Item #1) The CDC offers 12 ways to health during the holidays (and all year). (Item #2) This fact sheet from the American Red Cross offers good tips on holiday fire safety. (Item #3)

Travelers Insurance offers five simple tips for your holiday safety. (Item #4) If you're traveling, here are some safety tips to keep in mind before you leave. (Item #5) Don't let your sense of caution fall by the wayside in the rush of holiday shopping. (Item #6)

As always, I look forward to hearing about your concerns with regard to business continuity. If there are any topics that you'd like to see covered, email me at [email protected].

Bob Mellinger, President
Attainium Corp

1. ESFI Holiday Safety

The winter holiday season is traditionally a festive and eventful time of year. Celebrations, family gatherings and visits from houseguests traditionally increase in number during the season. Statistics show that the incidents of home fires and electrical accidents also typically increase during the winter holiday season. Each year, the Electrical Safety Foundation International (ESFI) launches a national safety awareness campaign to encourage families and communities across the country to Make Safety a Tradition of the holiday season.
http://www.esfi.org/program/holiday-safety-50

2. Holiday Health and Safety Tips

The holidays are a great opportunity to enjoy time with family and friends, celebrate life, to be grateful, and reflect on what's important. They are also a time to appreciate the gift of health. Here are some holiday tips to support your efforts for health and safety this season.
https://www.cdc.gov/family/holiday/
And if you'd like to hear the CDC's tips put to music, click on this link:
https://www.cdc.gov/family/holiday/12ways.htm

3. Holiday Home Fires Fact Sheet

With holiday fires claiming more than 500 lives, injuring more than 2,000 and costing more than a half billion dollars, it makes great sense to heed this advice from the Red Cross about fire safety during your holiday celebrations.
http://www.redcross.org/images/
MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m4340080_FireHolidayFactSheet.pdf

4. Five Tips for Holiday Safety

The hectic pace of the holidays can present increased risks, such as overcrowded stores and greater opportunities for thieves to target your valuables and personal information. Here are five simple tips to help you have a safe and enjoyable holiday season.
https://www.travelers.com/resources/home/safety/5-tips-for-holiday-safety.aspx

5. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles -- Holiday Travel Safety Tips

Have you ever had a trip not go according to plans? There are several holiday films in which everything that could go wrong, does go wrong. As you and your family gear up for the holiday travel season, I wanted to provide you with some travel safety tips. Because, although watching travel disasters on the screen makes for big laughs, these predicaments are far from funny when they happen to us.
http://www.ready.wv.gov/news/Pages/
Planes,Trains,and Automobiles--HolidayTravelSafetyTips.aspx

6. Holiday Shopping Safety Tips

The holiday season is a time when people can become careless and vulnerable to theft and other holiday crimes. People are often in a rush buying gifts, decorating their homes, visiting friends or traveling. There is a big increase in the amount of people that are out and about shopping at the malls and grocery stores, packing the parking lots, grabbing taxis, filling up the seats on rapid transit and waiting in lines at ATM machines.
http://crime.about.com/od/prevent/qt/tips_shopping.htm