To grandmother's house we go....If you're leaving town for the holidays, please be sure to keep your home secure while you're gone. If you have a community newsletter on line, don't put in a comment such as "Dear Neighbors, sorry to miss the holiday party, but we'll be in Aruba the month of December. Cheers." For that matter, be careful where you make any announcement about being gone for an extended period (longer than a weekend), especially on all the social media we have such as Facebook. Ask a neighbor to pick up your mail and remove your newspaper from the driveway - I'm sure they'd love to have the free paper. If you're gone for longer than a week, you may want to have the post office hold your mail and have the newspaper delivery suspended during that time. If you have a "Neighborhood Watch" and a street captain like we do, take advantage of their good office, it's what they volunteer to do. If you don't have a Neighborhood Watch sign with the logo known to all, see if you can get your association to put one up front at the entrance of your subdivision, next to the "No Soliciting" sign.
In NY, we had the wonderful old gals we used to call "Mama Pajamas". They were generally older ladies, dressed in their pj's well into the day and who peered out from behind the shade or curtain and knew everything about everyone in the whole mile radius from her window. If you have an alarm system, I can tell you one of our stories. We left on vacation and had a freaky storm. Our outside alarm blasted like the Queen Mary and none of our neighbors had a key. The alarm wasn't monitored so no help there and the police couldn't do much, their hands were tied. Fortunately, my brother-in-law coincidentally came by to pick up our mail and newspaper and rescued the neighborhood from the piercing sound. If you don't have a trusted brother-in-law, you might want to find a friend or neighbor you can leave a key with and a temporary passcode you can make up for just the time away, then re-set back to your original passcode when you get home. Never, ever put a message on your phone at home that you are away on vacation! At work, if you must do so in an effort to serve your clients, be professional in your message but don't wish your clients a "Happy New Year and I'll return after my world cruise in February." Give Grandma a big hug for us.
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