The holiday season is here so all the great home security steps you took last year to protect your home, give them another go again this year. Wait, you took extra caution last year to protect your home right? If you didn’t, you should this year. According to the FBI there is almost half a million home burglaries in the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

If your community is anything like mine, then this year you need to be especially careful about home burglaries. The reason for that, police department budgets are being slashed all over the place. Officers are being laid off and budgets cut. If you try and call your local police department to get extra patrols in your area they might simply tell you that’s impossible. Not a priority for them. Sheesh, what is happening to our communities?

Check Social Media

Okay, so here’s your first tip, don’t advertise everything you’re doing on Facebook this holiday season. That goes for all the expensive purchases you make, to all the weekends or even weeks you’re going to be out of town and away from your home. Don’t blather everything to the world. That goes for all social networks, you’d be surprised how sophisticated some criminals might get in searching through Facebook or Twitter to find information on vulnerable people.

Check the trash

After the holidays are over you have to dispose of all the packaging your new shiny toys came in. You can do one of two things…one, throw the boxes out next to the recycling bin for the whole world to see what you have inside your house, or two, make them small and throw them in the bottom of the bin so they are not easily visible. Simple but effective.

Valuables go in the safe

Round up all the valuables, family heirlooms, and cash and throw them in that heavy-duty safe you have. If you don’t have a safe, then maybe this year is the perfect time to branch out your gift giving. Nothing says I love you more than the gift of a safe. I’m being a little bit tongue-in-cheek here, but honestly professional criminals, no matter how good they are, cannot get through a high-end safe secured to the ground.

Retrofit locks

Its the season for giving gifts to family and friends, but do you give a gift to your house? Your beautiful house which keeps you warm and protects your family from the cold dark outside? If you want to get a gift for your house why not retrofit all the locks so nobody can kick down the doors. The key to picking out good dead bolt locks are getting ones with reinforced strike plates and extra long 3 inch screws for additional protection. This will make your doors very safe against brut force.

Common sense

For my final holiday tip of the season I want to give the gift of common sense to all the world, at least when it comes to home security. Please don’t leave your valuables in plain sight. Sure, placing your Christmas tree in front of a huge open window looks very pretty, but people can see all the presents underneath, and all they have to do is reach thru the window and snatch them up. If you go out of town for an extended period of time, don’t let mail or newspapers pileup in the driveway or mailbox. And finally, if you don’t have a good relationship with your neighbors, this is a great time to get one started. It’s been shown that there is safety in numbers when it comes the neighborhood security. If everyone’s watching out for each other’s back(yard!) then you’re way more protected.

The holiday season is a busy time for us all, but we need to make extra time to prepare every needful thing. This includes home security. Look at your house and try to creatively think where you might be vulnerable. Don’t make yourself a target for theft this year, because getting burglarized is a perfect way to ruin the holidays.

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David Glenn is a home improvement expert.  He occasionally freelance writes about making your home more green.  Be sure to check out Budget Direct for great home and contents insurance comparisons, because you can never be too careful with your home, family and belongings.