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Guide

Holiday decorating: what actually goes wrong

The federal injury figures for holiday decorating, what causes most of them, and the timing of a display that does not end at an emergency room.

Information, not adviceThis page is general information, not medical advice, and it cannot account for your situation. For anything involving an injury, a medical device or a child, follow the guidance of a qualified professional and the instructions supplied with the product.

Holiday decorating produces a predictable spike in injuries every year, and the pattern is consistent enough to plan around. The Consumer Product Safety Commission put the season's emergency-room-treated decorating injuries at about 14,700, which averages roughly 240 a day through November and December.

What causes them

Falls dominate at 41 percent, well ahead of lacerations at 10 percent and back strains at 5 percent. Three of the deaths in that count involved falls from ladders. The implication is unglamorous: most decorating injuries are not about the decorations at all, they are about what people stand on to hang them.

  • Set a ladder on level ground and have someone hold it, rather than reaching from the top step.
  • Hang the high pieces before the room fills with boxes and cable.
  • Keep lit candles away from anything that burns, and treat a live tree as something that needs watering daily rather than once.

Small parts and small children

A lot of decorative stock in any range comes in high counts of small pieces, and that is worth thinking about in a house with a toddler. CPSC's toy injury reporting recorded an estimated 154,700 children aged 12 or under treated in emergency rooms for toy-related injuries in 2023, with 10 deaths, and choking on small items was a recurring cause. Anything small enough to swallow belongs above reach, not on a lower branch.

When to put things up

Ordering ahead of the season is the practical move for bulk decorations, because the counts that cover a whole house are the first to go. Working backwards from the date the display goes up, and allowing time to check what survived storage from last year, avoids the two-day scramble that produces most of the ladder work.

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