Beware those Christmas baubles

[Albus]

Christmas in Ed Balls' house last year must have been perilous indeed. This year, to save him – and everyone else — from fear, the families secretary has issued more than 150,000 leaflets warning of potential hazards to avoid for the sake of festive fun.

Maybe Balls was one of the parents that managed to stab themselves with the scissors they'd hastily grabbed instead of a screwdriver to assemble new toys.

And was there an unfortunate soul who missed their seat at the dinner table and came crashing to the floor, or took a tipsy topple down the stairs after one too many sherries?

Balls' Department for Children, Schools and Families has seen fit to produce the "'Tis the season to be careful" leaflets — disguised as advent calendars – advising parents to take care with candles, games with small pieces, aftershave, and leaving dregs in glasses when young children are around.

According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, a typical Christmas day is rife with danger.

It predicts 80,000 people will go to hospital after accidents with cuts from knives used to open presents more quickly, children falling off rocking horses, smashing new bikes into walls, or tripping over toys and trailing cables in the rush to try out new gifts.

That's not to mention the 1,000 people that turn up to accident and emergency departments after an encounter with their Christmas tree.

Some 350 are expected to be hurt by Christmas tree lights alone – either by falling while putting them up, children swallowing the bulbs, or electric shocks and burns from faulty lights.

The leaflet even goes so far as to advocate avoiding baubles and their ilk altogether, because they break easily and the pieces can be very sharp.

Cooking the Christmas meal, however, is the most terrifying of Christmas battlegrounds – gravy explodes in microwave ovens, hot fat spills on cooks grappling with big turkeys and nasty cuts emerge from chopping piles of vegetables.

According to the DCSF, children should be kept out of the kitchen altogether while you're cooking turkey and all the trimmings, to avoid burns and scalds.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/dec/22/christmas-hazard-guide

[LeftishBrit]

1. I will always remember the Christmas...

when our exceedingly accident-prone cousin managed first to upset an entire bucket of white paint over himself (don't ask what he was doing with white paint just before Christmas dinner!) and then, much more seriously, to open a champagne bottle in such a way than he sent a cork in the direction of his eye. His daughter had a fun(???) time driving to see where the nearest Casualty department was, that was open on Christmas Day. Fortunately, there was no permanent damage but it was a memorable occasion!

These cousins are fond of holidays, and enthusiastically celebrate both Christmas and Passover. But they have never yet ended up in Casualty over Passover. So far, anyway!

[Albus]

2. if only he'd had one of Ed Balls leaflettes he'd have been ok