You’ve put up a baby gate to prevent falls, carefully covered your electrical outlets, padded sharp corners on your coffee table, and buckled your tiny passenger into an approved infant carrier. You try to keep your home as bacteria and germ-free as possible, disinfecting thoroughly and then locking up household cleaners away from inquisitive hands and mouths.

Yet there are still an estimated 2.1 million accidental child poisonings each year, with dishwashing liquid leading cause. Sadly, damage caused by these products is often gruesome: burned mouth, scarred esophagus, repeated operations to rebuild throat, sometimes even death. And no matter how diligent you are about keeping your cleaning products out of harm’s way, you may still be slowly and unwittingly poisoning your child, day after day. How?

If you use products with harsh and harmful chemicals that contain known carcinogens (cancer-causing agents) toxic residues left behind on your floors, furniture and in air find their way into your child’s body through her skin, mouth, and nose. And even your personal care products (soap, shampoo, conditioner, styling aids, deodorants, etc.) can contain dangerous chemicals as well.

Your little one is like a sponge: developing cells in a child’s body are more susceptible than in adults, especially in his central nervous system. Even small doses of neurotoxins that would be harmless to an adult can alter his nervous system development. And until your child turns 13, his growing body has virtually no ability to fight biological and neurological damage from toxic chemicals. As much as we tend to think of skin as a protective barrier, in fact it’s highly permeable, as evidenced by successful use of skin patches to deliver prescription medication.

Well, it can be!

- First, insist on family members pitching in to help and treat this like a family project. This should not just rest on your shoulders to accomplish and it will be much more fun if you all are making changes and creating memories together.

- Next, pick a day and time you'll all devote no more than one to two hours for a quick holiday makeover at your home (for a major decorating holiday schedule two or three longer blocks of time). It helps if you can set decorating date about one to two weeks from now, if time still allows for that. This gives you time to gather items together for project. - Ask kids to create one or two new arts and crafts decorations that are suitable to holiday to have ready for decorating day. Or, ask them to select ones from among any they may already have on hand, for instance, from school projects. - Decide on 3 to 4 areas you will focus on decorating this year. Here are some choices: front door, front yard, entry hallway, kitchen table, dining room table, living room, patio, bathroom, bedroom. There are other areas you could consider as well. But if you want quick and dirty, then focus in on only 3 to 4 of areas for decorating this year. Anyway, you can select other areas next year for a change.

- Keep holiday decorations in separate bags, boxes or baskets in same closet or in attic so they'll be easy for everyone to retrieve when they are needed next.