The Holiday season provides us with many opportunities for fun with our family, and decorating inside and outside your Dallas home is one activity that can be enjoyed by both young and old. As always, however, the use of common sense and the taking of safety precautions are vital to ensuring happy holidays.
To that end, the Consumer Products Safety Commission strongly suggests you follow these timely tips when decorating your Dallas home:
TREES:
- When purchasing an artificial tree, look for the label “Fire Resistant.” Although this label does not mean the tree won’t catch fire, it does indicate the tree will resist burning and should extinguish quickly.
- When purchasing a live tree, check for freshness. A fresh tree is green, needles are hard to pull from branches, and, when bent between your fingers, needles do not break. The trunk butt of a fresh tree is sticky with resin, and when tapped on the ground, the tree should not lose many needles.
- When setting up a tree at home, place it away from fireplaces and radiators. Because heated rooms dry live trees out rapidly, be sure to keep the stand filled with water. Place the tree out of the way of traffic and do not block doorways.
LIGHTS:
- Indoors or outside, use only lights that have been tested for safety by a recognized testing laboratory, which indicates conformance with safety standards. Use only lights that have fused plugs.
- Check each set of lights, new or old, for broken or cracked sockets, frayed or bare wires, or loose connections, and throw out damaged sets. Always replace burned-out bulbs promptly with the same wattage bulbs.
- Use no more than three standard-size sets of lights per single extension cord. Make sure the extension cord is rated for the intended use.
- Never use electric lights on a metallic tree. The tree can become charged with electricity from faulty lights, and a person touching a branch could be electrocuted.
- Before using lights on the exterior of your [city] home, check labels to be sure they have been certified for outdoor use.
- Fasten outdoor lights securely to trees, house walls, or other firm supports to protect the lights from wind damage. Use only insulated staples to hold strings in place, not nails or tacks. You can also run strings of lights through hooks (available at hardware stores).
- Turn off all lights when you go to bed or leave the house. The lights could short out and start a fire.
- For added electric shock protection, plug outdoor electric lights and decorations into circuits protected by ground fault circuit interrupters (GFCIs). Portable outdoor GFCIs can be purchased where electrical supplies are sold. GFCIs can be installed permanently to household circuits by a qualified electrician.
DECORATIONS:
- Use only non-combustible or flame-resistant materials to trim a tree. Choose tinsel or artificial icicles of plastic or nonleaded metals. Leaded materials are hazardous if ingested by children.
- Never use lighted candles on a tree or near other evergreens. Always use non-flammable holders, and place candles where they will not be knocked down.
- In homes with small children, take special care to avoid decorations that are sharp or breakable, keep trimmings with small removable parts out of the reach of children to avoid the child swallowing or inhaling small pieces, and avoid trimmings that resemble candy or food that may tempt a child to eat them.
- Wear gloves to avoid eye and skin irritation while decorating with spun glass “angel hair.” Follow container directions carefully to avoid lung irritation while decorating with artificial snow sprays.
FIREPLACES:
- Be sure your chimney is clean and the flue is open before lighting a fire.
- Use care with “fire salts,” which produce colored flames when thrown on wood fires. They contain heavy metals that can cause intense gastrointestinal irritation and vomiting if eaten. Keep them away from children.
- Do not burn wrapping papers in the fireplace. A flash fire may result as wrappings ignite suddenly and burn intensely.
Remember, protecting your family and your Dallas home is a present you give to yourself and to our loved ones. Enjoy the season!
bounce house donated by Texas Home Central, face painting, and a special appearance by the Easter Bunny himself! 
Pulling a major holiday together with all the trimmings is no easy task, yet our loved ones count on us to make the holidays fabulous, regardless of the exhaustion and stress that comes with our elfin responsibilities. And who among us can honestly deny harboring those secret pangs of indecision in the chance that something we just bought will very likely go on sale the very next day! The horror! 
There is going to be one minute of prayer per person for Thanksgiving dinner! JUST ONE! And make it count! We do not care that you are thankful that your 13 year old daughter gave birth to a healthy baby or that your nephew just got out of jail. If you are still talking after that one minute is up, you will feel something hard come across your lips and they will be swollen for approximately 20 minutes.
“I was the oldest of the grandchildren in my family, and we kids knew my grandmother was not the greatest cook. But we did have fond, fond memories of this one great cookie she made: the black-and-white kind, frosted with half-vanilla and half-chocolate icing. The grown-ups told us, “You’re remembering those wrong. They were absolutely vile.” But we insisted they’d been manna from Heaven. Well, just after I graduated college, I had the bright idea of going into Grandma’s old recipe files and making the cookies. Which I did. Then I carried them in my lap on the plane to Cleveland, where I opened the box to screams of joy. We all dug in. Took a taste. And screamed again — in disgust. The grown-ups were right: the cookies were so sickly sweet that only a 6-year-old could love them. And I had ruined everyone’s sweet memories of them because I just couldn’t let sleeping dogs lie. At least the grown-ups enjoyed themselves — laughing at our shattered memories. Humph.”
Tags: Dallas Home, holiday decorating tips, safety tips for holiday decorating
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