With the New Year comes new possibilities and opportunities, but you need to make sure you’re in one piece to fully enjoy the beginning of 2023. While New Year’s is an exciting time, people are often injured during this time, and no one wants to spend the holiday in the hospital. So keep you and yours safe by reading these New Year’s safety tips!

Alcohol Safety

While there’s nothing wrong with cutting loose every once in a while, alcohol is something you should always be cautious with since there are a lot of things that can go wrong. For example, you need to monitor your intake and preferably eat something before drinking so you won’t get alcohol poisoning. Here’s a list of other things you need to consider before drinking:

• Plan ahead so you can get home safely, whether that be with a designated driver, taxi, or public transit
  
• If you suspect someone has tampered with your drink, dump it out
• Drink plenty of water and take breaks between alcoholic beverages
• Ensure the area doesn’t have any trip or fall hazards before drinking
• Be mindful that the bottles can be a hazard in and of themselves. Broken bottles can cause injuries, champagne corks can slam into people’s faces, partygoers can trip over discarded bottles, and someone might start a good ol’ fashioned bar brawl with one (fun story, but not the best way to ring in the New Year)
• Keep a large medical kit in your home just in case multiple people end up hurt

In addition to these points, there are also many things you need to avoid while consuming alcohol. Whenever you drink, don’t do the following things:

• Climb ladders
• Drink energy drinks
• Drive (this should be obvious)
• Operate firearms
• Operate snowblowers
• Participate in winter sports (or really any sports)
• Take opiates (this increases your risk of overdosing)
• Take sleeping pills (increases the lethality of the medication)
• Use knives, no matter what kind it is

Fire, Fireworks, & Gun Safety

Yes, I am fully aware of how tempting it is to bring in the New Year with a bang. Why wouldn’t you want to blow something up? However, even if it is legal in your area, you need to know the regulations and how to play with relatively dangerous things safely. Getting arrested or injured would be an interesting but unfortunate way to start 2023.

Fire

Wannabe arsonists and normies alike need to follow fire safety protocols or risk catching anything and everything on fire. Basic rules include never leaving stoves, candles, and fireplaces unattended, ensuring your home has working fire alarms and extinguishers, and keeping flammable items away from open flames and scorching hot items (such as curling irons). If you can do that, you should be able to keep your eyebrows intact!

Fireworks

If you like bright colors and explosions, you probably love fireworks and want to set off a few for New Year’s. However, fireworks can be perilous if you don’t use them properly. Not only will you risk setting poor California on fire again, but you can also accidentally blow off a few fingers (or your hands, damage your hearing and eyesight, get severe burns, and all kinds of other fun injuries). Here are the New Year’s safety tips for fireworks you need to know before lighting one.

• Make sure they are legal to set off in your area. If they aren’t, don’t mess with them
• Only light one firework at a time
• Never light one indoors
• Don’t light them near people, pets, cars, gas stations, or anything that could be damaged by them
• Keep a bucket of water and a fire extinguisher nearby
• If a firework doesn’t work, don’t try to relight it. Instead, dump it in water and discard it
• Only use the firework as directed
• Don’t grab, stand above, or attach things to the firework. This drastically increases your risk of injury
• Consider using sparklers to celebrate rather than fireworks as they are a safer alternative (I know, I’m such a joykill)

Gun Safety

These aren’t the tried and true NRA rules, so pay attention! Guns should exclusively be used for self-defense and state-approved recreational activities. Shooting a gun into the air is not only looked down upon, it’s also dangerous and frankly stupid. According to Newton’s laws, what goes up must come down. So unless you have a powerful enough gun to shoot into space (newsflash, it doesn’t exist) or the laws of gravity suddenly don’t apply to you, that bullet will be coming back down. And when these bullets rain from the sky, they can cause property damage or even kill unsuspecting pedestrians. If you’re still tempted to fire one off into the night, consider locking them up and going to bed or having a trusted friend hold onto your firearms.

Out & About Safety

Whether you’re attending a friend’s New Year’s celebration or attending the wildest party of the year, you need to make sure you travel there and back as safely as possible.

Driving

If you’re thinking this is another section talking about drinking and driving, you’d be correct. But wait, there’s more! There’s more to do than just not drinking if you’re going to be driving during the holidays. You need to take additional precautions, such as keeping extra space between you and the car in front of you, watching out for drunk drivers, and keeping an eye open for pedestrians, in addition to your standard ‘click it or ticket’ safety spiel.

Also, you should be aware that car thefts skyrocket on New Year’s Day. If you must drive somewhere, ensure your car is locked, valuables are either taken with you or hidden out of sight, and you are parked in a well-lit area.

Walking

Unfortunately, walking around isn’t necessarily safe. You could be mugged, hit by a drunk driver, or hopelessly lost. If your heart is set on a late-night jaunt, you need to make sure your phone is charged, you keep away from unsafe areas, and stick to bright, preferably busy main streets. And if you have the option, bring a buddy with you. There’s safety in numbers, as they say!

Kid & Pet Safety

Celebrating with kids and pets in tow means you need to be vigilant of their well-being. Kids can wander off or swipe an adult’s drink, and pets can be startled by fireworks and bolt or bite. If there are kids nearby, don’t leave alcohol sitting around or entirely forego it and make sure they have adult supervision at all times. As for pets, keep them inside and try to keep them calm. If they’re a cuddle bug, holding them may help ease their anxiety.

Now that you know all the New Year’s safety tips, you’re ready to start celebrating! Need a big kit to cover your big, bangin’ New Year’s celebration? Grab yourself a large first aid kit from our New Year’s sale!