Here’s the thing – Christmas time isn’t just about mistletoe and wine. It’s equally important for the whole family to stay safe this Christmas, especially around all the battery-equipped gadgets, so everyone can relax. Thus, we’ve created these Christmas safety tips; these aren’t just your standard Christmas Tree safety tips!
At RAVPower, our expertise is not only in batteries and charging, but also in providing great presents for your tech obsessed loved ones (check out our Christmas Gift Guide here!)
We’re here to help you remember to make sure your outdoor lights are suitable, that you prep the right batteries for your kids toys, and everything in between. Some Christmas safety tips might seem obvious, but there will be a few you won’t have thought of!
So sit back, relax, and make a checklist of things you need to make sure are safe this Christmas. Okay, maybe don’t relax too much just yet…
Have Spare Batteries Prepared For Electronics
You might face a power cut this winter, particularly if you’re a fan of putting up millions of lights. Plus, it gets dark super early this time of year. So, for your safety, it’s really important to make sure that you have spare batteries that are easily accessible in case of emergency.
One of our fave Christmas safety tips is making sure you have an easily accessible flashlight and spare batteries to hand, it certainly makes sure you can reach your fuse box or make your way out to the front gate in safety! Similarly, you can also buy power banks with built-in flashlights so you know you have days of power for your phone as well as a light to guide you at your fingertips.
These are great accessories to have as a back-up. But make sure you use them and then re-charge every few months to keep them at their full potential.
Don’t Take Batteries From Smoke Detectors
Keeping batteries in the house, then, is another one of our top Christmas safety tips! It will keep you safe and ensure emergencies like power cuts (or new Christmas toys that need to be played with immediately) don’t have to be dramatic.
However, you need to keep your batteries stored properly. An important thing to remember for this safe place is that it must be away from open flames and heat. This might seem like a strange request – how many people would put them near flames? – but it is cold, and it is Christmas. Not to mention, you might have a fire going and put the batteries down on the mantle, or on the top of a wood burner when it is off, and forget.
If you expose batteries to high temperatures it does more than just damage the cells inside. The battery can start to spark or flame, and some will even blow up. In summary, not a great way to help the festive mood!
Store Batteries Out of Reach of Children
As a fan of this blog, you’ve probably seen our article on button batteries and keeping children safe around them. Oh, you haven’t yet? Definitely check it out.
A lot of kids’ toys nowadays require button batteries to work. As a result, these are small and shiny – perfect for an inquisitive kid to try and chew on.
If they swallow the battery it might just pass through their system without harming them. But if it gets trapped in their throat or their saliva causes a reaction to the battery, this simple mistake can be fatal.
Another of our incredibly important Christmas safety tips, then, is to make sure your batteries are all stored out of reach of children. Any used or ‘dead’ batteries should be recycled and also stored away from curious kids before you take them to your local recycling depot.
Remove Batteries Before Storing Decorations
Something you might not realize is one of the Christmas safety tips is removing batteries from Christmas decorations before you store them.
Christmas decorations are stored for most of the year, and not to mention often in dry places like lofts.
Leaving batteries in this kind of condition can be a cause for concern. Old batteries can become corroded and leak, destroying the decorations. This is also dangerous for the next person who picks it up.
What’s more, in incredibly rare cases Lithium Ion batteries can catch fire. Whilst this is extremely unlikely to happen, if the worst case scenario occurs in a box of decorations, they will all go up in flames.
Is it worth the risk to leave them in for the sake of a few minutes taking all the batteries out?
Buy New String Lights for Top Christmas Tree Safety
Similarly to before, you want to keep your decorations that use batteries and have electrical wiring up to date.
This is an important Christmas tree safety tip – though you might only use the lights for the tree once a year, they will also suffer the effects of age. Consequently, you need to make sure that you are replacing your decorations at regular intervals and whenever you see signs of damage.
Make Sure Your Outdoor Decorations Are Suitable
It’s imperative to check you are using the correct decorations that are suitable to use outside of your house. This might not be your thing, in which case you can skip to our next Christmas tree safety tip!
It is vital that you check all of the battery casings for your outside lights are highly water and weatherproof. Ideally they will be IP66 weatherproof – but this might come with a higher price tag.
Regardless, you need to be aware that not all lights are suitable for outdoor use and to double check the ones you’re putting up have all the necessary precautions. Due to the importance, this is one of our Christmas safety tips you can’t ignore.
Don’t Keep Your Lights On Overnight
One important aspect of Christmas tree safety is that you don’t keep your Christmas tree lights on overnight.
There are a few reasons for this.
One, do you really want to spend all that money on electricity with no one to see it?
Most importantly, this is a fire hazard!
Especially if your tree is dry, the heat from the lights has the potential to cause a flame. While this isn’t really likely to happen – especially if your tree is fresh – again it isn’t worth taking the risk that it might happen.
For these reasons, you should be extra careful as well if you have more than one set of lights that you don’t overload your outlet, and that the wiring isn’t pinched or compromised anywhere around the tree.
You can purchase lights with timers on if you’re likely to forget to turn them off, or make a routine of turning them off before bed.
Keep Your Tree Watered!
Finally, this has been a really popular Christmas tree safety tip this year.
As we mentioned, a dry tree is far more likely to cause an issue in a room – not least because its needles are everywhere. If there’s a spark from the fire, or faulty electrics, it’s more likely to go up in flame!
This video will illustrate to you the best Christmas tree safety, for example, how to keep your tree watered:
You can read a comprehensive list of Christmas Safety Tips from ESFI here! Visit RAVPower’s website for all your battery needs this Christmas!
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Thanks for these safety tips. Christmas is coming and these will really help to save things.