The holidays are a joyous time where you get together with family and friends to celebrate. While everyone is looking forward to catching up and having a great time, it is important to follow some safety guidelines to make sure that everyone is as safe as possible in your holiday home. What are some areas that need to be addressed?
Holiday Cooking
When people are in the kitchen cooking their holidays meals, there can be a lot of other things going on inside the home. Guests can be over, junior chefs can be helping, and the kitchen can be filled with people looking for just something to tide them over until dinner. This can be a very distracting time. It is important to not leave food that is cooking unattended. This is the most common reason for accidents/cooking fires in the kitchen. The water could boil over scalding little ones nearby, a kitchen towel can be left too close to the burner, or kitchen grease can catch fire, to name some hazards. Keeping an eye on what is cooking, what is next to cook, and watching little helpers goes a long way to having a pleasant holiday experience.
Some other concerns with cooking include making sure all the food is cooked to the proper temperature before serving and understanding all the food sensitivities that your guests have. If anyone has a severe allergy, this needs to be understood before cooking begins.
Holiday Decorations/Candles
Lighting candles in your holiday home adds a warm glow and festiveness to the celebration. Additionally, if they are scented candles, that is another layer of holiday warmth. It is important to make sure that the candles are on a sturdy surface with enough space around them to not start a fire. Holiday decorations should be far enough away from candles as well to make sure they don’t melt or catch fire themselves. One way to make sure that fires are not started is to check the wick length of the candle. Some candles need the wick shortened to control the amount of flame that it generates.
When you are putting up your tree, if you are using a real tree, you need to make sure that it stays adequately watered. Make sure that any lighting or wiring that goes to and around the tree is correctly distributed so that no part of the electrical is overloaded. Additionally, when the season is over, make sure that you have a plan and a specific date, by mid-January at the latest, to remove the live tree from your home.
