December brings a month of festive activities and events leading up the New Year. Each region of the United States adds their individual flair to the holidays. If you are not from the south and especially Georgia, you should know that we have many regional festivals and traditions such as the annual Festival of Kudzu and the Lighting of the Great Pine Tree located near the Waffle House Museum in Norcross.

The streets are lined with cars, all going exactly where you are and the malls are filled with children giving Santa their list of demands.

The holiday season also brings out the seasonal thieves who begin to make the rounds in the parking lots of the stores and malls. This is the time of the year that you need to give just a little thought to at least to remind yourself that people do steal during the holiday period. They don’t give much thought to the Spirit of Christmas or anything else.

This is also a time where identity theft will increase. Make sure that your credit card transactions show, on the merchants copy, only the last four numbers of the credit card. The other numbers should show only an X. Purse thefts will increase and those credit cards stolen will be used within an hour. If you’re selling items on the Internet, don’t be fooled by scam artists and phony bank checks. Verify everything. Sell items by mail only when you’re assured that the check or money order is legit and has cleared prior to sending the item. If they need the item prior to that, find another buyer.

Don’t put your presents in the back seat of your car and then go back into the mall or stores without at least trying to put those presents out of view. If you are one of the seven people in the north Fulton County area who doesn’t own an S.U.V. then use the trunk of your vehicle. Otherwise, hide everything. If you leave your purse in that shopping cart then you’re screaming to have it stolen and if you read these reports then I don’t even need to bring up you, your wallet, credit cards, and your ten-thousand dollar Rolex, and that gym locker.

Once you get those things home just remember that burglars don’t take the holidays off either. Pick it up a bit on keeping an eye out. For those of you leaving town, check with your neighborhood watch street captains or coordinators and have your neighbors go by and check the home. Set your lights and music or TV to timers and let them go for a while, upstairs and downstairs. Have your neighbors pick up the mail and paper.

Keep an eye out for one another and report suspicious activity.

Verify all those Christmas charities that are popping up. Don’t go face-value on anything for the next three weeks. Exercise some badly needed restraint on the road and especially in the parking lot of the store. There’s nothing more embarrassing than to have to hire a lawyer to represent you in magistrate court over getting into a fight over a parking space.

Don’t hit the ATM’s after dark unless you absolutely have to. Day or night, check the area around the ATM machine. Thefts from cars are going to increase so take a little extra time and empty that car out before you park it for the night.