It will be here before you know it. Our (non-exhaustive) tips to you and your family for a safe, fun and legally-prudent Christmas Day for 2019:
1) On Christmas Eve after early bed time, apply a liberal, but discreet, thin layer of baby powder on the floor outside each child’s room to discourage middle-of-the-night stocking snooping;
2) When you retire on Christmas Eve to wait for Santa, fasten green painter’s tape plentifully between the newel posts at the top of the stairs to further discourage over-enthusiastic stocking visitation before Mom and Dad are up, dressed, coffeed-up and ready to go (enough to ensure a child cannot pass through the tape wall without sound and extensive effort);
3) Turn over the toy gift and actually untie/unravel all of those annoying twist-ties holding your child’s toy in its excessive plastic packaging – don’t try to jam scissors or a sharp knife in to that tight space to try to cut the ties where they wrap around the toy itself;
4) Prevent your child (and husband/father) from testing the 9 volt battery for the new toy by pressing it on their tongue – this has actually caused injury and emergency room visits;
5) Take out all of the pins from your new shirt before trying it on;
6) Avoid conveniently grabbing the sharp knife from the kitchen to cut open the hard plastic packaging for that toy – take the time to find and use the correct tool, like scissors or a utility knife with a guard;
7) Pick up the broken pieces of the hard plastic wrapping from the floor after the gift unwrap – avoid the pieces getting lodged in a barefooted, housecoat-wearing, messy-haired family member;
8) Read the Pot of Gold chocolate index before selecting – there are reported cases of severe allergic reaction caused by mistakenly believing your choice was the cherry-filled (i.e., avoid the marzipan one);
9) Don’t carve the turkey after consuming three (3) alcohol drinks or more;
10) Leave adequate space between you/your children and the Christmas tree branches when retrieving gifts under the tree – eye lacerations are a common Christmas morning accident;
11) Remind your elderly family members at the Christmas dinner to chew their meat thoroughly – most Christmas mishaps often involve choking at X-Mas dinner;
12) Ensure the zipper is drawn down before your enthusiastic child tries on that new jumper, coat or hoodie – a common source of eye injury on the holiest of mornings; and
13) Pull the knife across the avocado and twist it (to remove the stone), rather than stabbing down and prying it out – there are recorded emergency room visits about this.
