Lina Forrestal

Tips to Keep Your Family Safe During the Holidays | Sponsored by Tech Services New Jersey

The holidays are right around the corner and with the world transitioning into a new normal, many of us are traveling again.

Our family is planning on doing a little traveling during the holidays. My family lives in Florida and I am so excited to visit them! It’ll be Archie’s first time at the beach, if you can believe that. John and I aren’t really beach people, which is ironic because when we lived in the Boston area, our house was steps from the ocean. We even got married on the water!

Where was I going with this again? Oh yeah, staying safe during the holidays, that’s right! I got sidetracked.
The holidays are an interesting time for several reasons: lack of routine, different foods, and potential to travel.

Here are a few tips for staying safe during the holidays:

If you don’t know CPR, consider getting certified, especially if there are children and infants present

Like I mentioned above, the holidays are full of different foods that we don’t normally consume. This can be hazardous for children as they try new food and still may be learning how to chew and swallow correctly! Understanding what to do when an adult or child is choking or if there is another medical emergency is critical. You can even establish roles ahead of time with your partner. For example, communicating with your partner: If our child is choking, you dial 911 while I perform the heimlich.

Don’t share your live location or travel plans on social media

Not to sound paranoid but you never know who might be watching. While real-time sharing is the nature of the game, it’s not safe to share your location or up-coming travel plans. Consider setting your profile to private temporarily or creating a “close-friends” list on Instagram to share real-time updates.

It’s not smart to announce upcoming travel plans and let the public know you won’t be at your house because your house then becomes a target. That brings me to my next tip!

Consider a security system

One way to ensure that your house stays safe during the holidays is a security system. For those local to New Jersey, Tech Services of NJ can help you with a reliable alarm monitoring service. They’re able to assist in security systems and fire protection and have some of the most skilled technicians available, field management resources and customer service in the security industry. These roof repair professionals in Warren County are the ones to hire to help keep your home safe!

Keep an extreme weather emergency kit in your car

We’ve had some strange, historical weather happen in New Jersey this year. With winter around the corner, it’s smart to keep an extreme weather kit in your car for those “just in case” scenarios. Some supplies to consider:

A gallon of water
Non-perishable food
Flashlight and extra batteries
First Aid Kit
Diapers and wipes if you have a infant or toddler
A sleeping bag or warm blanket
Signal flare

It’s stuff that you hope you’ll never need, but if you have an emergency, you’ll be glad that you thought ahead! True story: when we lived outside of Boston, we lived in a little town that flooded constantly. I was unlucky enough to drive through a street that was deeper than I thought it was and my car engine flooded. I ended up buying a cute bike and rode everywhere since my car got totaled in July, but it was so extremely unexpected and I was so unprepared when that happened!

I hope that this blog post was helpful in providing a few out of the box ideas on how to keep you and your family safe during the holidays!

What I’m looking forward to most is for us to spend more quality time as a family. I feel like we’re always in such a rush or on weekends we’re always racing to get chores done that we don’t actually take time to slow down and really see each other. I’m sure that’s true for most families!