The holiday season is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. But statistically, November and December are the most dangerous months—with injury rates that spike dramatically compared to the rest of the year.
The biggest culprit? Holiday decorating. Every year, more than 15,000 people end up in emergency rooms due to decorating-related injuries. And 34% of those injuries are from falls—people tumbling off ladders, roofs, and chairs while hanging lights and ornaments.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission reports that December alone accounts for the highest number of ladder-related injuries of any month. People who never climb ladders the rest of the year suddenly decide to scale their roofs to hang icicle lights in freezing temperatures.
But it's not just falls. Thousands of people cut themselves on broken ornaments, get electrocuted by faulty light strings, or injure their backs hauling Christmas trees and heavy boxes of decorations. The pressure to make your home look festive turns ordinary people into amateur stunt performers.
Then there's the food danger. More than 400,000 illnesses every year are caused by spoiled Christmas leftovers. Turkey, ham, casseroles, and side dishes sit out on buffet tables for hours during parties, creating perfect conditions for bacterial growth.
The "two-hour rule" for perishable food gets completely ignored during the holidays. That turkey's been sitting on the counter since noon, picked at by guests all afternoon and evening. By the time someone puts it away at 10 PM, it's been in the danger zone for eight hours.
Even worse, people store leftovers in containers that are too large, so the food in the center never cools down fast enough. The outside might feel cold, but the inside stays warm enough for bacteria to multiply. Three days later, you're eating contaminated food and don't know it.
Kitchen fires also spike during the holidays. Deep-frying turkeys causes hundreds of fires and millions in property damage every year. Unattended stoves, overloaded electrical outlets from decorative lights, and dried-out Christmas trees near fireplaces create a perfect storm of fire hazards.
Emergency rooms see predictable patterns every holiday season: decorating injuries peak in early December, cooking burns happen on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and food poisoning cases surge 2-3 days after Christmas when people start eating questionable leftovers.
The most frustrating part? Most of these injuries and illnesses are completely preventable. Don't climb ladders alone, refrigerate leftovers within two hours, and maybe don't deep-fry a frozen turkey. But every year, the same disasters happen because holiday pressure makes people ignore basic safety.