Ah, the Christmas holiday season is upon us. Parties, gifts, over-indulging in all those tasty treats everywhere. But it’s not all decorated trees, mistletoe, and good cheer. Long lines at the stores, brutal traffic, and your rapidly dwindling checking account jack up the stress level to homicidal levels. And the opportunistic criminals are out in force. So today’s episode is going to be on surviving the holidays.
The holiday season, synonymous with joy and celebration, also demands a vigilant approach to personal safety. Understanding the potential risks and adopting proactive measures is crucial for a secure and memorable holiday experience. In this brief guide, we’ll delve into various aspects of personal safety during the festive season.
Drawing on my experience in law enforcement, (yeah, if you didn’t know I was a cop for a while), and pulling stats from the FBI and other sources, I want you to understand that, while the world always holds a certain amount of danger, the Christmas holidays amp the level up significantly.
To effectively safeguard ourselves, it’s important to understand the heightened risks we face during the holiday season. Things like the increase in home burglary rates. Every holiday season, almost half a million homes are burglarized in the United States.
Personal attacks also increase. December rates of robbery and personal larceny are 20% higher than the average monthly rate of these crimes. Law enforcement is strained these days, thanks to the efforts of “progressive” district attorneys and the “defund the police” whack jobs. Whereas in the past there was an increased police presence during the holidays, agencies are lucky if they’re able to provide full normal shifts. The bad guys know this and take advantage of the situation.
For those of you who travel over the holidays, whether it be to go to the store to shop or go interstate to visit family or friends, you’re exposed to a lot. In bigger cities like Chicago (especially Chicago) the crime du jour is carjacking. This is where armed criminals relieve you of your vehicle and all that it contains, leaving you stranded along the side of the road. And that’s the best-case scenario. Add the stress of the season to the normal amount of road rage and a simple act of being on the wrong stretch of road at the wrong time can have your car ending up with more holes in it than Sonny Corleone’s in The Godfather.
The advent of technology opened up new hunting grounds for criminals. Identity theft and email scams increase dramatically over the holiday season. And those with accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, and X, the platform formerly known as Twitter bring pain upon themselves showcasing their gifts and letting the world know they are out of town.
My goal is to help you mitigate these threats. We’re going to work our way out, and tell you how to make your home safe, how to keep yourself safe in public, be safe traveling in your vehicle, and keep the cybercriminals at bay.
Starting with su casa, your Fortress of Solitude, there are several things you can do to make it less appealing to thieves. In our season two, episode number nine “Don't Feel Safe? Here's Some Things You Need To Know About Defending Your Home!” we covered some of the ways you can harden your home against burglars and intruders.
The simple expedient of ensuring your doors and windows are locked when you leave the house can go a long way towards keeping the casual thief out. Don’t run external holiday light cords through a cracked window or door. That inflatable Rudolph in the front yard may be cool, but find some other way of powering the blower that isn’t an opening for thieves.
Leave some lights on when you leave the house. Better yet, put them on timers. If you have one of the NSA listening devices, I’m sorry, I mean an Amazon Alexa unit or a Google Assistant, you can pair them with Wi-Fi outlet plugs and program them to turn lights on and off and turn on radios and televisions. This will give the impression the house is occupied. Give those AI units something to do when you’re not home to earn their right to record your private conversations. And yes, I have both because nothing beats the convenience of screaming at a robot to tell you the weather.
Externally, and internally, alarm systems and surveillance cameras can be used. If you opt for an alarm system, don’t go cheap. As a former cop, I can tell you that answering false alarms at a house multiple times a week does nothing to enhance response times. Depending on the jurisdiction, you may even be charged for multiple false alarms. So you can pay now or pay later, the choice is yours.
If you go with an alarm system, post signs telling everyone you have one. Criminals take the path of least resistance, and unless there’s something in your house they think is worth the risk, (and more about this in a minute), they’ll move on to the next one. You could also go really cheap and just put the signs up even though you don’t have a system. Not a course of action I recommend.
Surveillance cameras are awesome as they can be helpful in identifying criminals. You can even get them internet enabled so that when your house is being robbed, they can send you a notification so you can watch your belongings being carted off in real-time.
While you’re proud of the eighty-six-inch television you gifted yourself, and putting the box out front with the trash is a great flex against Chad across the street, it’s also attractive to criminals. Break down and discretely get rid of the boxes big ticket items came in. Because at the end of the day, you just need to know you’re better than Chad.
And while we’re talking about boxes, are you having packages delivered? The growth of e-commerce is a major driver of holiday crimes like package theft. About 57% of consumers shopped online for holiday presents in 2022, compared to 42% in 2015. Industry experts project that holiday e-commerce sales will top $220 billion in 2023. And although in-store pickups have become common, most people still have packages delivered to their homes. The United States Postal Service processes 23.8 million packages each day. And that’s on average. December is the busy season at the USPS. Around 88% of homeowners worry that packages left outside their homes will get stolen.
In a 2017 survey from Shorr Packaging Company, 61% of respondents said they felt online retailers weren’t doing enough to prevent package theft. Let’s face it, it’s not up to the shipper to prevent theft. Once the package is delivered their responsibility is over. The responsibility, then, is yours.
If you can’t arrange a time for delivery when you’re home, consider having a relative or trusted friend or neighbor there to receive it or swing by and get it. Whatever you need to do to keep your goodies out of the hands of the porch pirates.
I mentioned this earlier, but keep your travel plans, pictures of your expensive gifts, and anything else you wouldn’t freely tell a criminal off social media. Because if you post it, you’re telling them.
Now that you have your house reasonably secure, it’s time to head out into the world. This is where your personal safety comes into play.
In our Season One, Episode Fifteen podcast “Situational Awareness And The Christmas Holidays” I talk about, you guessed it, situational awareness. I also talk about other things, but situational awareness is what I want to hammer on here. As soon as you leave your home, stay off your damn phone. If you need to make or take a call or send a text, find someplace secure before you do so. Otherwise, you don’t need to check social media, the news, sales advertisements, et cetera while you’re out in public. Pay attention to what is going on around you. You can’t recognize a threat in advance if you’re buried in your phone.
Secure your wallet. Don’t have it somewhere that is easily accessible to bad guys. Pick-pocketing is still a thing. Unless you absolutely have to carry cash on you, don’t. Consider getting a refillable gift card and carrying that instead of your credit and debit cards. Put as much on it as you’re planning to spend. This way if it’s stolen that’s all they’ll be able to take from you. (This will also come in handy when we get to cyber security.)
On the subject of wallets, consider springing for one of the RFID-defeating ones. Not all criminals are technologically ignorant, and scanners are easily obtained that can read your debit and credit card info while they’re in your wallet.
Avoid isolated areas if possible. If you leave a store after dark, and your car is in the far, dark reaches of a parking lot, see if you can get store security or an employee to walk to your car with you. If you’re armed, be sure your gun hand is free. Be prepared to just drop whatever you may be carrying if it’s not.
To be safe in your vehicle, consider the following steps. When you park, try to park in well-lit spaces, preferably in a secure lot. Avoid isolated spaces if you can.
When you park your vehicle, ensure it is locked and you have taken the keys with you. If you have packages inside, cover them so that they’re not visible from the outside. Just toss an old blanket in your back seat before you head out shopping, and you’ll be able to cover what you buy.
While you’re driving, pay attention to driving the car. It’s no time to be on the phone, playing with the radio, stuffing cheeseburgers down your gullet, or anything else that distracts you from operating the car. Remember, everyone is stressed. You don’t want to be the cause of an accident. Even a very minor fender-bender has the potential to blow up into a deadly situation.
Keep your car doors locked when you’re driving, and be cautious of strangers approaching your vehicle.
Protecting yourself online, or cyber-security, is increasingly important. If you’re like Mrs. Pirate and I, you may have done the bulk of your Christmas shopping online. My wife prefers it for the convenience, and I like it for the absence of human contact. Be that as it may, when shopping online, there are some things to keep in mind.
As I mentioned earlier, a refillable gift card is the preferred method of paying for things online. Instead of transmitting your debit or credit card information, and potentially exposing your bank account to being drained or your credit card bill looking like a drunken Senator’s, you’ll only be out what’s on the gift card.
Watch the sites you’re using. Legitimate e-commerce sites will have an HTTPS address rather than an HTTP one. HTTPS addresses are secured through encryption, so look for them before you enter any info.
Your email inbox will doubtlessly be filled to overflowing with spam, and more than a few scam emails between Thanksgiving and Christmas. If you get an email from your bank or credit card company directing you to a website to enter your account or card info to “verify” it, don’t do it. Institutions will never ask you for this information. The scammers are good at faking things. The institution logo will be on the email, and the from line will end in the domain, like security@yourbank.com. They’ll both be faked.
And while not security-related, consider getting a throwaway email account to use so your real address isn’t crushed with even more spam from the shopping sites. Something like ihatespam@gmail.com.
The convenience of online activities during the holidays should not compromise cybersecurity. Adopting secure online shopping practices, exercising caution on social media platforms, and staying vigilant against phishing attempts are imperative for safeguarding personal information.
Navigating the holidays with a focus on personal safety enhances the overall joy of the season. By being proactive and mindful of potential risks, you can ensure a secure and memorable celebration for yourself and your loved ones. Hopefully the only bad experience you’ll have over the holidays is Aunt Doris’ casserole.
And that will be it for this episode. I hope I was able to give you a few tips you could use. As always, if you enjoyed this podcast consider letting one of your like-minded friends know about it. We’re listed in all the major podcast directories, or you can listen in at our website. Our next, and last of the year podcast will be on Christmas day. Until next time, shoot safe.
