The Neighborhood Game That Took Over Christmas
Something wild happened over Christmas 2025. Across the country, neighbors started stealing each other's yard inflatables. On purpose. With permission. And it was the most fun anyone had all year.
If you were anywhere near a neighborhood Facebook group in December, you probably saw it. The rules were simple: someone puts an inflatable in their yard. A neighbor sneaks over and steals it. They put it in their own yard. Then someone else steals it from them. And on it goes, until the whole neighborhood is hooked.
Tinsel the Cow
In Whittington Creek, a neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, Jenn and Mark Hultz kicked things off with an inflatable cow they dubbed "Tinsel." What started as a joke between a few houses turned into a full-blown neighborhood event. At one point, Tinsel was stolen five times in just 90 minutes. Five times. People were literally watching from their windows, waiting for their moment to strike.
Frank the Flamingo
Over in Plumas Lake, California, a flamingo named Frank became the neighborhood celebrity. Frank didn't last at any single house for more than five minutes during peak hours. The best part? Frank didn't just bring one neighborhood together — he united multiple sub-neighborhoods that had never really interacted before. People who'd lived on the same street for years were finally meeting each other, all because of a plastic flamingo.
The Eagle Mountain Amazon Heist
Things got creative in Eagle Mountain, Utah, where one player dressed up as an Amazon delivery driver to pull off a steal. They walked right up to the front porch, "delivered" a package, and walked off with the inflatable. Neighbors only figured out what happened when they checked their Ring doorbell footage and couldn't stop laughing.
Baby Yoda's Six Lives
In nearby Vineyard, Utah, a Baby Yoda inflatable became the mascot of choice. The game was so intense that they went through six Baby Yodas over the course of the season. Six. Turns out inflatables aren't built for competitive sports.
How It Spread
A lot of the credit for the trend going viral goes to Kimber Cutler (@campcutler on Instagram), who posted a set of rules that took off. Her post laid out the basics — steal the inflatable, put it in your yard, wait for someone to steal it from you — and neighborhoods everywhere ran with it.
But here's the thing that everyone ran into: tracking who had the inflatable was a nightmare. Most neighborhoods used Facebook groups or text chains. People would post "I just stole it!" and someone else would reply "Wait, I stole it 10 minutes ago." Nobody knew who actually had it. Disputes broke out. The honor system only goes so far when neighborhood bragging rights are on the line.
Enter I Got Dibs!
That's exactly the problem we built I Got Dibs! to solve. We watched these games unfold and thought: this is incredible, but it could be so much better with a little bit of technology.
With I Got Dibs!, every mascot has an NFC tag built in. When you steal it, you tap your phone on the tag. That's it. The app instantly records who stole it, when, and from whom. No Facebook posts. No text chains. No disputes. The leaderboard updates in real time, so everyone in the neighborhood can see who's winning.
We're taking everything that made Christmas 2025 magical — the community, the mischief, the neighborhood pride — and giving it a backbone. Same spirit, better game.
If your neighborhood played the inflatable game this Christmas, you already know how addictive it is. Now imagine it with automatic tracking, leaderboards, seasonal themes, and no arguments about who stole what when.
That's I Got Dibs!. Grab a kit and bring the game to your neighborhood.