Coming Home w/ Dr. Marian Jefferson

Ensuring a Merry, Safe, and Stress-free Holiday: Practical Tips and Reflections

December 15, 2023 • Dr. Marian Jefferson

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Welcome to a heartfelt episode of the Griot Journal's Coming Home podcast, where you'll glean essential knowledge for a joy-filled and safe holiday season. As your host, I'm thrilled to share essential safety tips and strategies for managing holiday stress to ensure you and your loved ones stay safe while making merry. We dive into the heart of the festive season, touching on vital aspects such as home safety, from timely light usage to smoke alarm checks, and preparing yourself for potential stress triggers. 

As we move through our holiday safety journey, we also discuss practical ways to create a safe and comfortable space for your guests, including why a first aid kit is indispensable. We'll explore child-proofing and elder-proofing your home, and we'll confront sensitive issues like dealing with guests who might struggle with substance abuse. In the true spirit of the season, we close with reflection and gratitude, cherishing the joys of family, the hope that Christmas brings, and the blessings we've received throughout the year. Tune in, let's journey together towards a safer and more joyful holiday season.

Thank you for joining our podcast today. If you have any questions, or comments, or would like to share your own experiences with aromatherapy, please feel free to reach out to us. You can connect with us on social media, or visit our website for additional resources and information.

Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast to stay updated with our latest episodes, and if you enjoyed today's content, please consider leaving us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback is greatly appreciated, and it helps others discover the valuable insights shared in our series.

We look forward to having you back with us for our next episode, where we'll continue to explore the wonderful world of aromatherapy and its role in promoting mental and emotional well-being. Until then, take a deep breath, relax, and be well. I hope to hear from you soon. Your feedback is most welcome.


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Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, thank you for tuning in once more to the Griot Journal's coming home podcast. I'm your host, dr Mary and Jefferson, better known to you as MJ. Well, we are headed fast toward the end of the year, bringing to conclusion 2023. I cannot believe how fast this year has gone by. I hope the holidays so far have been grand for you. They certainly have for me. I have so much to be thankful for including you Today. I want to talk about safety tips for the holidays. I've got a couple of things that I think would be very important to consider ahead of people visiting or ahead of you traveling, so I've got a few tips I wanted to talk about. The holidays can bring a lot of joy, but it can also bring a lot of stress, and so I think the best way to manage that is to become aware of the things that really are triggers for you and to plan ahead, and so today we're going to talk a little bit about when we get ready to travel, what that may look like or what that needs to look like for you, and then how do we prepare for others coming into our home for the holidays. So, first off, let's talk about how to keep your home safe Now.

Speaker 1:

Many of you probably have a lot of things that you traditionally do during the holidays when you get ready to leave. Some things that we do at our house traditionally has been to ask a neighbor to pick up the mail for us, so it doesn't look like that we are away for a long period of time. Some other things we might do are to have a post office stop our mail and, depending on how long we're going to be gone forwarding that mail, usually there's someone always here. So of late in these latter years we haven't had to do those things. But those are some things to consider, especially when you're going to be away and it is out of the pattern for you. People may notice that this is not the pattern for you and may take advantage of that. Another thing that we might do to keep our home safe is consider the lighting. If you're going to be traveling, want to use a timer if you are able to use a timer for lights, so that they're not on all the time, because if they're on all of the time, people are coming and dropping things off or mail, or maybe visiting around your neighborhood may notice that those lights don't ever go off, which can be a red flag for someone, or a green light, if you will, for someone looking to do something nefarious and so using timers and you can get them pretty inexpensively these days because there's such demand for them. Everyone is using them and I won't promote any particular brand, but you can get them rather inexpensively at a Walmart or our favorite online store, amazon, to install. Everyone has those ring cameras these days and I think linking them up to your phone is also a good deal. If you can find one of those, that is very helpful, especially when you're leaving people behind as well when we're. We'll get to that a little later, but if there are people that you have house sitting or people that you have coming by, that could be very helpful. Also, leaving those little cameras on On inside the house with some people have inside systems that work for them as well.

Speaker 1:

Christmas trees many of us are putting up Christmas trees these days. We haven't put up a tree in a long time, but we have family visiting now and we're going to put up a tree this year Interesting, because we've not done it in so long. We're thinking about all of these different things that go on the tree. The last thing we thought about were the Christmas lights Very important because we had to consider where we were going to put the tree in relation to the plugs that we had in the home and how much power it was going to generate generate. Did it matter how tall the tree was? The little animals that we have dogs that we have around, potentially children coming over, and how that would impact them. And since we hadn't thought about this in the long time, we kind of pared down so that we could make sure that everyone visiting was going to be safe.

Speaker 1:

Maybe you have some similar things to consider, especially when traveling. We want to definitely make sure that if we have the lights on and they are on a timer, that they don't stay on for very long, that they're not near things that could catch a blaze, and that we check out the cords and the lights to make sure that they're all functioning. Give those a test, and that could be Pretty fun as well. If you have a certain someone that loves that. That's their job. You can make it a family deal. You know Cookies and teas and all of those kind of things and just come on together and be a support to whomever that is, or make it Something that you all do together to check out those lights. It's super important. We want to keep the risk of fire down during the holidays.

Speaker 1:

Also, while we're on that, we can talk a little bit about fire extinguishers. Usually there's a specific time of year that we're doing testing of smoke alarms and things of that nature, but I'm testing my fire extinguisher and the smoke alarms around the same time. For some of us We've never used our fire extinguisher, but here at the Jefferson household we seem to bring it out pretty often during the holiday season. So it's Imperative that we know what kind of fire extinguisher we have, that we have a fire extinguisher that's going to be prominent, where everybody knows even our guests when they come, if they're cooking in our kitchen, that they are aware of where the fire extinguishers are, where the smoke alarms are and what the plan is if the fire, if the alarms, do go off. When my kids were smaller, we would have these fire drills and I remember one time In late in the middle of the night we had a drill and I'd gotten everyone up and they were responsive and I headed on out the door, no one necessarily in hand, but I look back and no one was behind me and I went back in the house and everybody was still in the bed sleeping. I have to tell you that, you know, after looking back on it now I can laugh, but at that time I was mortified. But it was because we hadn't been doing it, so they weren't used to it. So integrating these drills can be very helpful, especially for people who are not familiar with your home and that plan. If you've got elderly people, you need a plan so that there could be a way of escape for them and that there's Not as much anxiety and coming to a place that they're not familiar with. Also, with smoke alarms, the fire department has been out to check in the communities. I don't know that I see that a whole lot lately, but I know that they are willing to change batteries out several times a year and I think that during the holidays we should be ready, having tested those. But if not, this is something that we definitely want to do. We definitely don't want to have a fire and not have these things be tested and available to us if we need it.

Speaker 1:

Another thing is a first aid kit. First aid kits are important to have around just in general, but especially when you're having other people over, accidents do happen. You can get first aid kits from Walmart, from your CVS. You can order them online to have around. They don't have to be really big and fancy, but it is good to have not just one but multiple first aid kits. One of the places that's ideal for a face first aid kit is in the kitchen, believe it or not, maybe in your laundry room If you have a multi upstairs and downstairs, multi level home one upstairs and one downstairs. But also many people may not think of this but keeping one in your trunk, keeping one in your car. A lot of times when people are coming for the holidays, they're also doing things together in the community, whether it's parks or doing picnicking or theater or movies or going out to eat those kinds of things. Driving through communities looking at Christmas lights anything could happen where you might need that kit, and so it's good to have it and not need it. Then need it and not have it, even for the elderly and for the young as well.

Speaker 1:

If you're not used to having little ones over, then you may not think in terms of home safety, child proofing your home, but also elder proofing your home. So what is elder proofing your home? Well, I'm so glad you asked. As people get older and are dealing with the issues of aging, there are certain challenges that they face. They may have difficulty with ambulating, may have difficulty picking up their feet all of the way, and sometimes they may be prone to tripping. So if you've got rugs around that are not necessarily tacked to the floor, it could be a risk for the elderly as they move around, or even the young. If you've got end tables or other kinds of coffee tables that are around that have the sharp edges and you know that people are coming, whether young or elderly, that may have difficulty with ambulating, that's a good space for you to think about purchasing some things to go on the end of those tables to keep people safe in case they were to fall, or to remove them all together.

Speaker 1:

Giving room. Children tend to run around a lot, and so, if you know that you have young children who are bound to be bouncing around a lot, these are some definite, important safety tips that you want to take into consideration. If someone gets overly tired or they feel sick, do you have a place for them to stretch out? Have you prepared that room to make sure that it's comfortable, that there's linen in there and things that they could utilize in order to feel better.

Speaker 1:

I know when I was growing up, we would spend a lot of time at my grandmother's sister's home for many of the holidays and there was always some place that we could go, and that was usually my great aunt's room if someone were to get sick or just need to lay down for a moment. And when you're dealing with the very young or the elderly, I think that that's a reasonable accommodation to make and to know ahead of time what these things might be that your guests might be facing Drugs and alcohol. If you've got people that you know are coming to your home who might be struggling with the challenges of drugs and alcohol, this is a conversation I would suggest that you have ahead of time with them. These can be very challenging conversations, but we need to be open about the needs and the expectations when people are coming into your home. Also, make sure that they are out of the way of children. If you've got prescription drugs, please make sure that they are in a lock box away from other people and that you have prominently displayed by phones or in the bathrooms or other places, poison controls phone number so that you can readily make those calls.

Speaker 1:

This is going to conclude this episode of Safety First for the holidays, and I look forward to hearing from you all how your Christmas holiday has been, how traveling with family has been, spending time with family and the goodness of God that you've experienced throughout this entire year, and sitting around the table sharing the good news that Jesus came, he was born and he's coming back again. For you and for me. Happy holidays everybody. Merry Christmas and God Bless.