Did you buy any holiday lights at Target? The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced a recall of holiday lights at Target. Mini Lights and Chasing Light sets, about 861,000 sets of which were sold at Target between September and December 2005, are part of the recall. The lights have "undersized and exposed wires", which are a shock and fire risk.

The lights are described this way in the press release: "The recall includes 50-count multi-color mini light sets, 100-count blue mini light sets, and 140-count chasing light sets. 'Mini Light Set' or 'Chasing Light Set' is written on the packaging. The 100-count light sets have UL number E254698 written on the tag attached to the light string. The 50-count light sets have UL number E182191. There is no UL number written on the chasing light set."

If you're casting around for resolutions to follow in 2006, please consider this one: to visit the Consumer Product Safety Commission's Web site, at http://www.cpsc.gov/, on a regular basis. This site has information on current recalls on the site as well as a large archive. It's got an RSS feed so you can read about product recalls in your feed reader. And it even has podcasts! Recent podcast topics include how to safely use portable generators, and safely heating your home in the wintertime.

Sometimes you'll catch a recall notice on the news, sometimes you won't. This way you can get it straight from the source, and if you use the RSS feed it's not tough to keep up with at all.