The good weather days are getting fewer and fewer, and many of us are busy getting ready for the cold stuff –doing yard work, garage cleanup and hanging holiday lights and decorations.

Here are a few things to keep in mind to keep in mind in order to avoid injuries and to have a happy, healthy holiday:

• When you are lifting, treat the light stuff the same as the heavy stuff. What do I mean by this? We all know how to squat “using our knees” when it comes to heavy stuff, but we tend to bend really poorly when it comes to lighter stuff like leaves, tools, sticks, etc. Treating this light stuff like the heavy stuff really protects our back, neck, shoulders and knees.

The way to know if you are doing this correctly is to put your back flat against a wall – from your buttocks to your shoulders. Your feet should be about a foot away from the wall. Slide down the wall, keeping your back flat against the wall (do not let your buttocks come away from the wall). You will feel more weight through your heels than your toes if you are doing it correctly. Step away from the wall and try to squat the same way, like the wall is at your back and the weight is through your heels more than through your toes. It requires much more focus initially because it feels really different, but it becomes more natural the more you practice.

• Do not take silly shortcuts and risks when doing tasks. We all want to save that few minutes that it takes to do something right, but in the end, it could be more dangerous than it should be. For example, using the arm of the couch to hang that curtain or dust off that curtain rod. Or, standing on the back of the toilet to kill that spider in the corner. As you can imagine, this is when accidents happen.

I currently have a client that was doing something like this, as she had millions of times, but this time she fell just wrong and dislocated her shoulder. Do not wait for your luck to run out. Go get the step stool. I know it is an extra 10 to 20 steps away and it is in the closet, probably buried. Unbury it and keep it in a more convenient location so you use it more often. This is for all of us, young and old. Accidents can happen to any of us.

•This brings us to hanging Christmas lights. Get the appropriate height ladder and make sure it is on stable ground. Please don’t stand on the top of the fence or roof with one foot and the top of the ladder with the other foot. We have all been there. It is easier to reach the feet than it is to climb down and move the ladder over. Take the couple extra minutes and be safe.

If we don’t let our kids take risky short cuts because we can “see what will happen next,” we shouldn’t do it ourselves.

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