MAKE SURE YOUR THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY IS SAFE!

This Thanksgiving holiday, more than 13 million Americans will travel to spend the holiday with friends and family, leaving their homes empty for opportunistic burglars. Follow these Thanksgiving safety tips to ensure your family's safety this holiday season.

To ensure a worry-free holiday, Protection 1 offers these simple, convenient travel and Thanksgiving safety tips to keep your family and home safe for the holidays:

• Remove fall-related objects that might allow access to your home. For example, ladders for cleaning leaves out of gutters can be used to enter a window or scale a fence
• Don’t post Thanksgiving travel plans on Facebook, Twitter or MySpace letting people know that you will be out of town
• Turn your telephone ringer down so no one outside can hear repeated rings; and review your answering machine message to make sure it does not imply that you are away
• Make sure to have all mail, newspapers, and deliveries stopped or picked up by a neighbor, friend or relative
• Never leave a key hidden outside. Burglars know all the best hiding places
• Secure all windows, including those upstairs and reduce the chance of easy entry by cutting tree limbs away from second-story windows
• Have a friend move your car occasionally if it is parked in the driveway
• Use timers to operate lights
• Have a Protection 1 home security system installed that includes a 24-hour fire monitoring service that automatically dispatches the fire or police department
• Consider installing a Web-based home security system, such as eSecure from Protection 1, that allows you to check on your home while away and even arm and disarm your system from any laptop, cell phone, PDA or other Web-enabled devices
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• COURTESY PROTECTION ONE SYSTEMS

DRINKING AND DRIVING HOLIDAY TIPS

For most, the holiday season is about spending time with family and friends, and usually involves parties, good food and laughter. Another facet of the holidays is the additional amount of travel that comes along with attending various functions coupled with the increased amount of holiday shoppers on the road. So while the holidays can be an exciting time, there are some important things to consider to help keep you and your guests safe this season.
If you're hosting a party, there are lots of things to take into account, whether it's trying to bake the perfect dessert, making sure you have enough food or worrying whether there's enough parking in your neighborhood for all your guests. With all that goes into planning a seasonal get-together, it's important not to overlook your holiday party safety plans.
Holiday parties often involve alcohol, and while you want your guests to enjoy themselves, it's also important to make sure they are being responsible. This involves keeping an eye out for anyone who may be drinking too much, and either providing a place to stay or a means to get home with a designated driver. Here are a few steps you can take to prevent holiday drinking and driving.

• Have a designated driver. It's one of the simplest rules to follow, but also one of the most effective in keeping people safe on the roads.
  
• Have cab numbers on hand. If someone should not be driving and they insist on going home, call a cab for them instead of allowing them to take the risk of driving home.
  
• Offer plenty of non-alcoholic drinks. While many guests may want to enjoy the holidays with an alcoholic drink, offer non-alcoholic drinks as an option.
  
• Offer food if you're offering alcohol. Drinking on an empty stomach can cause a person to become intoxicated faster. Offering food along with drinks may help prevent guests from over-indulging on alcohol alone.
  
  
  COURTESY OF 21ST CENTURY INSURANCE
  
  PICK A DESIGNATED DRIVER
  
  HAVE A HAPPY AND SAFE THANKSGIVING
  
  HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY HOLIDAY SEASON