BOO’ing The Neighborhood
Did you ever play ding dong ditch as a kid? My siblings and I weren’t too fond of most of our neighbors, so we did this more times than I’d like to admit. Sorry neighbors!
Fast forward a decade or two, and here I am, with kids of my own. I’d probably be pretty ticked if my kids were ding dong ditching, however there is this one time where I think it’s OK. And that’s to BOO our neighbors.
After being BOO’d last year, I decided to start it early in our neighborhood. I picked up a couple of plastic jack-o-lanterns, little trinkets, and candy for cheap at Walmart. I kinda had an idea of who I wanted to BOO, so I picked out appropriate items for each family.
At home, I designed a cute little printable (here) to include with each treat basket. Half of it was the instructions to pass the BOO forward. The other half was the sign to attach to their door, to let everyone know they’d been BOO’d, to avoid repeat BOOs and encourage spreading across the neighborhood.
When it came time to BOO, I considered sending the girls on their own (one of the houses is right next door), but they chickened out. So, together we went around the block.
At our first stop, the neighbors had their door open. I slowly creeped and peeked in, then dropped the basket, rang the door bell and RAN! Flip flops were probably the wrong choice as far as footwear, because they made a ton of noise as they slapped the bottom of my feet as I ran. I’m fairly certain we escaped undetected though.
Getting our next door neighbors was a bit easier, since our homes share a wall, and our doors are only about 20 feet apart. I just hope that they didn’t hear our door slam as we dashed into the house to hide.
Both families that were BOO’d are new to our neighborhood, so hopefully these fun little gestures make them feel more welcome.
