WEXFORD, PA — A boo basket left on the porch of local mother Krista Mendel at 6:14 a.m. Tuesday by a neighbor who described it in an attached card as “just a little something, no pressure!!” contained two 40-ounce Stanley tumblers, a Diptyque candle, an unopened Sephora Rare Beauty blush, and a hand-tied raffia bow that Mendel estimates cost more than the basket it was tied to.
The boo basket — a Halloween tradition in which neighbors anonymously gift each other small autumnal treats and then leave a printable sign instructing the recipient to “boo” two more houses — has, according to residents of the Foxcroft Crossing development, undergone what one woman called “a complete and total Stanley-ification” since approximately 2023.
“The original boo basket was, like, a Yankee Candle from TJ Maxx and some Reese’s Pumpkins,” said Lindsey Polachek, who has been on the receiving end of three baskets this October and now owes six. “Last year somebody put an Aerie sweatshirt in mine. This year Heather included a gift card to Sola Salon. I had to text my husband from the driveway. I said: this is escalation. This is hostile.”
The basket left on Mendel’s porch also contained a small ceramic ghost from Anthropologie’s Halloween line — sold out since August — a four-pack of Olipop, and a card that read, in cursive Cricut vinyl, “You’ve Been Booed!! 👻 Pass it on by Friday!!”
Mendel, who works part-time and has two children in travel soccer, said she has until Friday to assemble two reciprocal baskets of equivalent or greater value, plus print the sign, plus deliver them before sunrise without being seen.
“I cannot match a Diptyque candle,” she said, standing in her garage next to a half-assembled basket containing a Bath & Body Works three-wick, a bag of Ghirardelli, and what she described as “the panic.” “I have to go to HomeGoods at 9 p.m. tonight. I have to. There’s no other option. If I send a normal basket back, Heather will know.”
The Foxcroft Crossing boo basket chain, which began three years ago with a handful of Hershey’s miniatures and a Halloween-themed kitchen towel, now reportedly averages $74 per basket according to an informal spreadsheet maintained by one resident who asked to be identified only as “the Nextdoor lady.” That figure does not include the raffia.
“It’s an arms race, but make it gourd,” said Tessa Vroman, a sales rep who said she has spent more on boo baskets this October than on her own children’s Halloween costumes. “Last week I bought a $42 pumpkin-shaped charcuterie board for a woman whose name I had to look up on the HOA directory. I don’t know her. I have never spoken to her. I now owe her a basket.”
Heather Doogan, the originator of Mendel’s basket and a self-described “seasonal hostess,” declined to characterize the gesture as competitive, calling it instead “just a fun way to spread Halloween cheer to the women in my life I have ranked, internally, in tiers.”
As of Tuesday evening, Mendel was reportedly on her third trip to HomeGoods and had begun crying softly in the seasonal aisle next to a display of velvet pumpkins priced at $28 each.