Well So Much For That

Four years ago when I found out I was pregnant with Big D, Mike and I bought our current home. I love our place. I love its proximity to downtown. I love that shopping and some great restaurants are nearby. I love that the neighbourhood is safe and quiet. I love that we get along with the neighbours on either side of us.

What I don’t love is the overall lack of neighbourhood spirit that I see present in other places. In fact, there appears to be a resistance to making this a friendlier neighbourhood.

Take, for example, a friend of mine who lives in Oakville, Ontario. Her, her husband, and their two girls moved there almost three years ago. Immediately someone on their street threw them a welcome party so they could get to know everyone. They are never without a standing invitation to head over to a neighbour’s house for a barbeque. The neighbours hold a block party every year where they close off the street and where adults and kids alike have a great time. It goes on and on.

Last year this friend told me about having “Been Booed.” I had no idea what she was talking about. It is like a Secret Santa for Halloween where neighbours secretly send candy and treats to two people and then those two people do the same, and so on. By Halloween almost her entire neighbourhood had “Been Booed” by someone.

I thought it was a terrific idea and one this neighbourhood could really use. It isn’t expensive or time consuming, it is just meant to be a lot of fun and perhaps, just perhaps, get people to be friendlier and more open to talking to their neighbours. And I shall be the one to make this happen!

Ha! Guess again.

I did up six bags of treats (if I was going to get this going I had better start out with more than the suggested two. As it happened I could only deliver three bags due to an unusually active neighbourhood the night I did my secret deliveries.) You need to attach the message from the website to explain the concept of “Getting Booed” so people don’t freak out when a bag of random candy shows up on their doorstep. Attached to the message was a sign that you are supposed to put on your front door indicating to any other would-be “Booers” that they should move on to someone else since you were already a recipient.

So out of those three homes, only one has put their sign up in the door indicating that they were getting into the spirit of the thing. The other two? Nothing. I mean, it is clear that it isn’t mandatory to participate in this but they could at least, at the very least, put up the sign that came with the treats to ward off anyone else who may have the same idea of trying to spread some seasonal good cheer.

If there is a Halloween equivalent of Bah Humbug, I would like to know because it certainly applies to my neighbourhood.