With every holiday season comes the rounds of merry-making. Civic groups, friends, family, coworkers — this most wonderful time of the year is chock full of parties.

And every year, someone’s holiday is ruined by drinking and driving. Whether it’s handling court dates, court fines, increased insurance, inability to drive during non-working hours, a DUI can have lasting ramifications. Should an impaired driver hit another vehicle or injure, or even kill, a person, those consequences can be life-changing, for both driver and victim.

During the 2018 holiday season, 25 people were arrested and charged with DUIs on Beaufort County roads. That means 25 people got into their vehicles, cranked the engines and drove when they were not legally able to do so. Twenty-five is far too many. Because it’s only luck or circumstance that those 25 instances of driving under the influence did not result in 25 or more deaths.

The number 25 is an improvement, however, over the 33 people arrested during the same time period in 2016.

This time of year, law enforcement is on the alert; checkpoints are frequent and random. During the 2018 holiday Booze It & Lose It campaign, there were 12 checkpoints and 111 saturation and random patrols in Beaufort County. Everyone should simply do themselves, and law enforcement, a favor and make smart decisions about how they’re getting home from any given holiday celebration if there is drinking involved. Have a sober driver, call a cab, make plans to spend the night, walk — there are many other options than the one that is both illegal and could prove fatal.

This holiday season, let’s get those 25 impaired drivers arrested last year in Beaufort County down to none at all.

Don’t ruin the holidays, for you or anyone else.