“I want an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle!”
“No, you’ll shoot your eye out.”
Although this line from “A Christmas Story” is funny in the movie, it’s nothing to laugh about in the real world, as the risk of eye injuries increases during the holidays.
Here are some general safety tips to make sure you don’t have to take an emergency trip to see your ophthalmologist:
• Decorating – pointy lights, glass ornaments, and sharp needles all pose significant eye injury risk. Moreover, if you are spraying anything like artificial snow be sure to keep those chemicals out of your eyes.
• Christmas Tree🎄– wear eye protection if cutting down or trimming your own tree. Use caution when mounting it on your car, and while setting up as well. It’s easy to be poked in the eye with branches when tree wrapping is released, or when working on securing the tree.
• Popping the bubbly 🍾 – New Year’s celebrations and champagne go hand in hand, but so do champagne bottle corks and eye injuries. This year, uncork that bottle of champagne with a hand towel over it to ensure the cork doesn’t fly. While not as flashy as a cork flying across the room, sending a party guest to the emergency room isn’t exactly a positive party memory.
• Toys and other gifts 🎁 – Avoid purchasing toys with sharp, protruding or projectile parts. Before gifting a doll house or remote control car to little ones, be sure to unpack it and identify any sharp edges on the toy or its accessories.
• Mistletoe – It is is meant to be a surprise, but sometimes it’s a bit too much of one… right in the eye! Those on the shorter side are in luck, but all those tall guys and gals out there need to keep an eye out for that unexpected mistletoe.