Getting Booed
October 27, 2010
Hi all, how’s your fall? Are you enjoying the cooler weather, the falling leaves, and the colors of the season?
How gorgeous is this display at my local grocer around the corner? A perfect harvest scene! It just doesn’t get much better than this . . .
Except when you arrive home to find a little treat bag on your door, and you have no idea who left it there. This is the second time this week a treat bag has arrived anonymously on our front porch.
We’ve been BOOed!
I had never heard of this Boo Game until this year, my family and I are smitten with it! These anonymous ‘Boo’ treat bags are akin to the ‘Secret Santa’ and they are a fun way to spoil your friends and good neighbors. Perhaps you’ve been BOOed too?
This is especially fun with small children, and ours all happen to live in same neighborhood and attend the same local public school so they are all giddy with excitement at school trying to find out who BOOed who.
We’ve been BOOed twice, so we decided it was our turn to spread the BOO around yesterday.
The game is simple. You fill the treat bags with inexpensive Halloween delights, then include the Boo Poem, like this one I recreated (below), and you secretly leave it on your neighbor’s doorstep.
Free printable available here.
Then you send out your fellow conspirators to do the deed.
BOOing someone else is always kept a secret.
We hope you’re having just as much fun as we are in the lead up to Halloween. Have you ever been BOOed?
**** Update: I’ve learned you’re supposed to include a picture of a ghost for the recipient to post on the front door or in a window for others to know they’ve been ‘BOOed’. Something kinda sorta like this:
We hope you’re having just as much fun as we are in the lead up to Halloween. Have you ever been BOOed?
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Sara, now I want to be flamingoed!!!
Our neighborhood in Massachusetts was big on “boo-ing” eachother! But our neighborhood here in Utah? Not so much! So we started the “boo” tradition here this year! Nothing is more fun than anonymous goodies at your door!
I’ve never heard of this before but I love it! My kids would so enjoy doing this. Thank you for sharing.
We got BOO’d last night…but not by anyone in our neighborhood. Natalie saw who it was. When I explained that BOOing is supposed to be a secret, she wouldn’t tell me who it was, but did say it’s a friend who doesn’t live in our neighborhood. I tried ELFing 5 or 6 years ago in our neighborhood, and it went over like a lead balloon. We live an older neighborhood with not a lot of children/young families. Kind of sad…
our neighborhood is all about this boo tradition. it’s fun. although nothing has come around as cute as these bags. maybe next year.
How cute! I have never heard of this concept before but it sounds like super fun!
Excuse me while I go check my front door to see if I have been boo-ified.
…Nope. Darn.
Maybe I’ll BOO the little old lady across the street!
Love the BOO bags! We do that every year!! Fun! Fun! Fun!
This is the first year I’ve heard of it too. Thanks for the reminder because I have a couple of targets in mind. I guess I better get busy. La
I have been BOOed and I attempted to BOO some neighbors since I was BOOed (that’s a lot of Boos).
Anyways, this was when I was in high school. My mom and I were driving around booing a few neighbors. I would run up to the door, place a bag of treats on the doorstep, ring the doorbell, then run to the car. At one of the houses, I did all of the above…except run to the car. I rang the doorbell, turned around, ran down the one step that led to their door…oh no, wait. There were two steps. I realized this too little too late. I laid sprawled out flat on my face on their sidewalk. As I was lying there I was thinking, “I have GOT to get up or they’re going to come to the door and see me lying like this and they will be scared and confused. Embarrassing!” So I pulled myself together, stood up and kept running to the car. I don’t know if they saw me. I never looked back.
I skinned my knees pretty badly and tore two holes in my favorite pair of jeans. My mom patched me up as a good mom does, even for her almost grown daughter. I started swim practice the next day. Scabs in water…not fun and not pretty. Oh, and embarrassing to be 17 years old with two gigantic skinned knees because you were BOOing neighbors with your mom.
I still have a scar on my knee from this BOOing experience. And I’ll always have this ridiculous memory that I think of every Halloween and whenever I’m back home and drive past the house.
So yes. Yes, I have been BOOed. And I got more than I bargained for!
FUN!!! smiles….
this is such a cute idea!
our neighborhood does it every year! Usually kid goodies like pencils and a toy or a Halloween storybook…my children love it.
That picture of your daughter is too cute! I love it! We got BOO’ed last year and we played along and BOO’ed a couple neighbors. I didn’t get it together soon enough this year and we haven’t gotten BOO’ed yet either. So I guess no one is doing it. Your bags are really cute. It’s so much fun!
I love the “boo” game. You also need to make a sign to put on your door that says that you have been boo’ed so that you are not boo’ed several times. Thanks!!
Yes, we get booed…more importantly…I lOVE that picture of the pumpkins (your girl is awfully cute, too!)
I LOVE this idea! I don’t think it exists here in Australia..and I am so keen to introduce it to my friends!! Thank you for sharing.
Your ‘co-conspirator’ is very cute! :)
Happy Halloween to you all the way from Sydney!
x Charlotta
Great post for Halloween and some ideas are racing before the big night~~~~
We’ve been booed twice, in previous years. Thanks for reminding me; I’d better get crack a lacking!
Our neighborhood has had this tradition for many years and it’s been so successful that the adults created their version: BOOzing. We got BOOzed this year with a cute bag filled with two bottles of a nice craft beer. Not surprisingly, this has been very successful as well! (did I mention I’m from Milwaukee??)
I too love your cute little boo bags.
That is so fun! I was just thinking about Secret Santa this year and feeling kinda sad about it since I don’t have any co-workers to play with this year! What a great alternative!! And your daughter is just darling!
Love this idea! Will have to do that this week to a few of my neighbors. My 94 year-old neighbor will get a kick out of it! :-) P.S. I started my blog yesterday! Woo-Hoo I am thrilled!
I moved to Folsom in 99. Been Boo’d every year. So fun!
I love this time of year and i love the harvest image! So exciting!
Our neighborhood also does this, however once we’ve been BOOed, we hang up the picture of the ghost that was left with our treat bag on our front door so we can’t be BOOed again. It is very fun!
We were “Booed” with the free printables found here, that include the Boo sign for your door as well as the directions: http://andersruff.blogspot.com/2010/08/free-printable-happy-halloween-boo.html
Oh, and the person who “Booed” us put it in a cloth trick-or-treat bag, which I thought was clever. Now one of our kids can use it for candy on Halloween!
I was tired of my kids having all the fun, so three years ago I started putting gift baskets together for my friends complete with wine and goodies. I made up a poem and made a sign to say, I’ve been BOOzed! Lol! I love to get Halloween wine glasses and buckets on clearance to prep for next Halloween!
Martha, I would love if you would share your “BOOzed Poem”! I know Christmas Tree Shop has adorable wine glass charms and Halloween decorated wine classes.
Anyone know what to do when your kids don’t get booed? They are heartbroken! Should I boo them myself? We tried to keep it going by just booing 2 more neighbors but still haven’t been booed!