Holiday Books For Children and a Safety Tip

The other day I was thinking of all the holiday books my kids used to enjoy when they were little. Some of their favorites were the "Night Before" books by Natasha Wing. They have titles like: The night before the night before Christmas, The night before Valentines Day, The night before Thanksgiving and The night before Summer Vacation. Here are a few pics of the ones we have. I can't throw away any childrens books...I'm saving them for my grandbabies one day. :)

This Valentine's Day one was one of our favorites.

Just look at these sweet illustrations. :) All the books talk about what happens "the night before" different holidays. Remember how exciting it was the night before the big Valentine party at school? Making boxes to hold all your Valentines, baking cookies to share. All good memories. Except the one year I went to the bathroom right before the judging of the Valentine boxes...I had worked so hard the night before decorating my box with wrapping paper, lace, and stickers. I just happened to go to the bathroom right before they started going around the room voting for the best box. Just a few minutes later when I got back, they had already voted and my box was left out. Bummer. I just knew I would have won. Oh well. 

Oh how my kids loved these books! I checked on Amazon, and now they have all new titles like:

The night before New Years
The night before my birthday
The night before the tooth fairy
The night before St. Patrick's Day
The night before Father's Day
The night before Mother's Day
The night before Preschool
The night before the 100th day of school
The night before kindergarten
The night before the new baby
The night before summer camp

Anyway...you get the picture. :) If you have little ones at home, you might want to check these out. Your local library might have them too. 

With it being the holiday season and all, I wanted to share a quick safety tip. We all know how important it is to hide any packages in our trunk while shopping, and to lock our car doors. Well, when I got my car, it was set to have the doors automatically lock when I reached 9 miles an hour and to automatically unlock the drivers side door when I put it in "park." So, basically, as soon as I pulled into a parking space and put my car in park, my door would unlock. 

I didn't like this and it was a simple fix. I'm sure all cars are a little different, but on mine, I just accessed the menu on my dashboard and followed the on screen directions. There was an option to take off the "automatic unlock when in park." 

I don't think you can ever be too safe, ya know? Sometimes when I pull into a parking spot, I might sit there for a minute gathering my coupons, or making a phone call or something and I don't want my door to be unlocked while I'm sitting there. 

Of course, I could have just re-locked it when it automatically unlocked, but I like it better this way. Now I don't have to think about it. :)

I also always automatically lock my doors as soon as I get in. I never wait for the "automatic lock at 9 miles an hour." 

One more tip... I've been seeing on the news how important it is to lock all your car doors while filling up at the gas station. Apparently, thieves are reaching in the passenger side doors while people are filling up and stealing their purses. Sheesh. Scary. And sad.

So, what safety tips can you share? Are you extra careful around the holidays? 

~Lisa