Patty: Welcome to CPSC’s Podcast for Friday, November 30, 2007. I’m Patty Davis.

The holidays are just weeks away. That means you may be getting ready to decorate your house. To help prevent holiday-related injuries, CPSC is monitoring the marketplace and the Internet for dangerous holiday lights and decorations. We’re also working with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to identify and prevent unsafe holiday decorations from being distributed in the U.S.

But you can also do your part to keep your family safe this holiday season.

Joining me to talk about safe holiday decorating is CPSC’s Julie Vallese.

Julie, what types of injuries do you see at the holidays?

[Julie]: Well Patty, many people are very busy. They want to get their decorations up in a hurry. So oftentimes during the months of November and December, we see an increase in falls and cuts and shocks and burns all related to holiday decorating.

[Patty]: Also, Christmas trees can be a problem. There are about 200 fires every year with dried out Christmas trees and 10 deaths. What can you do to prevent a Christmas tree fire?

[Julie]: Preventing a Christmas tree fire really starts when you purchase the tree. Look for a fresh tree. Do freshness tests. Make sure that the needles don’t fall off the tree very easily. And when you get it home you have to make sure that you put it in water and you water it every day.

[Patty]: How about lights on your tree? What should you make sure you look for there?

[Julie]: Well last year you probably balled up your Christmas tree lights and threw them in a box. And now you’re pulling them out to decorate your tree again. You need to do a quick inspection of those lights. Make sure that there aren’t any exposed wires, that the sockets or any of the lights aren’t cracked. And if your lights look like they’ve seen better days, you may want to go out and buy new lights.

[Patty]: And candles. Everybody wants to have candles around the holidays. Are there hazards with those?

[Julie]: Candles smell great. They look pretty. But when you do have candles in your home you need to make sure that they are out of the reach of kids, make sure that they’re not down low where the family pet might knock them over, and when you are leaving the room make sure that you extinguish those candles and make sure that there aren’t any leftover embers.

[Patty]: Thanks Julie. And have a great holiday. You can find more holiday decorating tips at www.cpsc.gov as well as information about recalls announced by CPSC.

That’s it for this week’s podcast. Thanks for listening.

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