The Buttercup Neighborhood Game

 We played a lot of board games over the holidays--including Wingspan, Telestrations, Codenames, Coup, Nertz, Trash, Magic the Gathering, 10 Days in Europe, and Dixit.  We enjoyed the more laid-back time to play together and only had a few grumpy moments when the competition got a little fierce.  Haha!  

But there was another game we played over the holidays that I haven't mentioned yet.   It involved the whole neighborhood and some equally tense competitive moments, and also some very silly moments.  

It was all about this cute little Christmas inflatable named Buttercup. 

Basically Buttercup was purchased by the H family in our neighborhood and was introduced as a sort of reverse hot potato.  But instead of trying to get rid of it, the goal was to steal it from a neighbor's porch and see how long you could keep it inflated on your own porch. 

 

   In order to be an official participant in the game, you had to join the Buttercup GroupMe and follow along with the updates and rules.  That GroupMe was one of the funniest things I'd been a part of in a long time and it was quite humorous to see the silly {and competitive} side of our neighbors.  

We didn't even try to attempt any heists until Adam arrived home, but once he was home, the game was on!    He had a few unsuccessful steal attempts where he was caught before escaping, but I thought it was quite funny that the first time we actually managed to steal her was just after attending the temple together...

We took a little drive around the neighborhood on the way home and Adam snagged her in his church clothes.  Haha.  

We were quite proud of our conquest and guarded her pretty fiercely until we went to bed. 

  Guarding it meant playing games while sitting on our stairs just inside the door, then opening the door and yelling "we caught you!" to the would-be thieves.  

We caught a few and met a new neighbor in the process.  Much to our surprise, Buttercup actually stayed put overnight and was stolen while on our morning walk the next day.    Once we'd experienced the "thrill" of capturing and guarding her for ourselves, we didn't try too hard for a few days.  But then Kristina's family came to town and all that changed.   The second the boys heard about the Buttercup game, they were excitedly all in!  

Honestly it was a fun excuse to get out on neighborhood walks with the boys...

and the boys were far more diligent Buttercup guardians than we had been.   They literally sat outside waiting to yell at anyone who dared attempt a heist.   At one point in the final couple days of the game, the games keeper had  to change the rules to only allow an hour of "puppy guarding", because there were a whole lot of eager young boys out of school and willing to even sleep outside for the cause.  

It was a sad moment when Buttercup got stolen on New Year's Eve night and the boys'  final attempts in the last hours of the game (New Year's morning) proved unsuccessful, despite their coordinated efforts with fellow-would-be thieves to outsmart the conquering family.  

All in all, it turned out to be a fun distraction over the holidays and I 10/10 would recommend, as long as you get everyone on board with understanding the rules and the idea that it's all in good fun!