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Hopefully, for most of you reading this, your living rooms are no longer full of boxes after gifts were opened on Christmas Day.

However, we’re guessing that some of you spent your Sunday and Monday soaking up family time, leaving the mess to be cleaned up this week. And, since it’s so difficult to see everyone in one day, we’re guessing Christmas celebrations continue into this week for some families.

With that in mind, we urge you to be careful when disposing your boxes.

We usually write about this topic around Black Friday and again around Christmas because it comes up year after year. Unfortunately, there are criminals out there that will look at empty boxes to determine what new gifts a household received this year. An expensive gift might make a home more enticing to break into, so keep that in mind when breaking down boxes.

For instance, if you got a brand new, 70-inch television from Santa this year, maybe do something to ensure the box isn’t in plain sight for all to see when you sit it out for recycling or trash pickup.

The same goes for those Playstation or XBOX boxes, jewelry or anything else with a high value.

The Troup County Sheriff’s Office posts about this every year, asking people not to let a Grinch ruin their Christmas.

We urge you to keep this in mind as you throw out old boxes this year.