It’s time to unpack the holiday lights and dress the house up for Christmas. 

Between Thanksgiving, Christmas shopping, party planning, school concerts and work, however, you might be tempted to deck your halls in a hurry.

Slow down. The winter holidays can be the best time of the year — as long as you and your family stay safe.

No matter how busy you are, take care to protect your home from the risk of fire as you celebrate the holidays. A third of all residential fires occur during the winter, according to the National Fire Protection Agency. Don’t let your home become a statistic because you didn’t take time for safety.

• One of the riskiest holiday behaviors is overloading your electrical outlets. You will overload your wall outlets if you plug strand after strand of outdoor or tree lights together, and then plug them into an extension cord that you plug into an outlet.
• Plugging multiple strands of cords into a power strip does not add any juice to the electrical circuit that powers the outlet you plug the strip into. 
• Don’t run extension cords under rugs, carpets or baseboards. This creates a fire hazard.
• When you put up outdoor decorations, avoid stringing lights in trees near power lines.
• Fasten outdoor lights securely with insulated staples, never nails or tacks. 
• Keep electric lights away from decorative metal trees.
• Keep all light strings out of reach of small children and pets. Both like to chew the wires!