The Boga Blog

Thursday, December 30, 2021

2021 Winners: A Year of Great Inspo & the continuation of Jamie's dynasty

Another year, another variant, another Boga Bake-Off! Results are in....(drum roll...)...and Jamie took home the #1 spot for the SIXTH year in a row with "Cicada Season"! But it was a nail biter until the end with Robin's "Free Britney" threatening the top spot within a handful of votes the entire time. It was also a super tight race between third and fourth place, with Robin's "Ted Lasso says Be a Goldfish" and Jamie's "Tug Life in the Suez Canal" changing places multiple times. In the end, Robin's Ted Lasso cookie prevailed (despite her never having seen the show!!), and Jamie's Suez Canal took home fourth.

Multiple honorable mentions go to Nancy for her Shaman and Bezos' Boner...while they elicited many laughs and strong reactions from our fan base, they only scrapped together enough votes for a two-way fifth place tie.

We had a great time admiring everyone's good ideas from this year's news stories and pop culture highlights. And an even better time hearing from friends and family, near and far, about how much they enjoy the annual cookie contest. Over 300 people voted from the US, Canada, UK, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Kenya, UAE, and Australia! We felt the love and can't wait to be back next year!!

Here are final standings:

1. Cicada Season by Jamie, 122 votes

2. Free Britney by Robin, 115 votes

3. Ted Lasso says "Be a Goldfish" by Robin, 109 votes

4. Tug Life in the Suez Canal by Jamie, 101 votes

5 - tie. Q Shaman goes to Washington by Nancy, 84 votes

5 - tie. Bezos' Boner by Nancy, 84 votes

7. Red Light, Green Light by Jamie, 80 votes

8. Bernie's Mittens, Christmas Edition by Robin, 78 votes

9. Mr. Big is Alive! by Robin, 46 votes

10. Masked by Nancy, 24 votes

11. Omi-get-Vaxxed by Doug, 13 votes

12. Bond, Drunk and Fat Bond, by Jamie, 12 votes

Sunday, December 26, 2021

Vote in the 2021 Boga Bake-Off!

Welcome to the Boga Bake-Off! Each person should vote for their TOP THREE COOKIES in a single vote. Click on three images, scroll to the bottom, and hit SUBMIT to enter your vote. Your vote doesn't count unless you hit SUBMIT.

While most of you have participated in previous polls, here is a quick history for any newbies:

The Chiribogas used to decorate Christmas cookies like any other family, but as they continued to bake, their creative juices flowed. Santa turned sexy, snowflakes become infinitely more elaborate, and cookie shapes were seen as mere suggestions instead of strict guides for designs. Toothpicks became the go-to tool for applying individual sprinkles and a new type of cookie decorating emerged...the Boga Bake-off was born - over 20 years ago!

This year, we were back in person!

Nancy & Doug safely made it from Santa Fe, and everyone has remained unscathed by Omicron so far. We had plenty of pop culture & news references to draw from this year...from Bond and Britney, to plagues of Cicadas and Covid. Some references may be niche, but we're hoping you've been just as glued to the TV and iphones as we have this year.

Sorry the poll is a little later than usual - we're so excited to to give you YOUR turn to vote! Gather round with your loved ones; polls are open until Thursday, 12/30 at Noon EST. SHARE with your friends and family, and thanks for voting :)

Monday, December 28, 2020

Boga Bake-Off 2020 Recap: Blow Torches, 5-peat, Barry Wood

Boga Bake-Off 2020 is done! By now you've probably seen the winners, but we wanted to highlight a few funny moments, special guests and all the cookies submitted.

Boga Bake-Off started late morning at Jamie's house. Robin came and realized Mia is now old enough to actually chill with. We zoomed in Adam & Maryanna in Pacifica, and Ellen, Barry, Nancy & Doug in Santa Fe.

You may remember Cousin Adam from "CookieHenge" fame, the winner of the 2012 Boga Bake-Off. He blazed new trails with the first 3D cookie, and showed up with a blow torch this year. We appreciated the performance art as he set his cookie on fire, symbolizing the sh*tshow dumpster fire that was this year!

Jamie got a later start and struggled to finish her first cookie, which actually was not submitted. Sometimes the weight of 4 straight wins, with aspirations of a 5th is too much for one to bear. But turned out it wasn't so; Jamie persevered and went on to win the top two spots with RBG love and Stocking Stuffer. While most people are familiar with the Barry Wood meme, turned out NONE of the Bogas were, which made Jamie a little nervous to post it publicly. But people paid it plenty of love to secure it the #2 spot.

Nancy showed up with aplomb. We had high hopes for her Trump's Gambit cookie, but perhaps it was too niche to garner the majority of votes. Robin had confidence in her submissions...but better luck next year BOBS!

Here are the full submissions and scores :)

1. RBG love (Jamie) - 142 votes

2. Stocking Stuffer (Jamie): 126 votes

3. Flygate (Robin) - 76 votes

4. The Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020 (Robin) - 57 votes

5. Trump's Gambit (Nancy) - 51 votes

6. Happily Ever Baskin #tigerqueen (Robin) - 49 votes

7. The 6ft Social Distance Cookie (Jamie) - 32 votes

8. #FollowTheFauci (Nancy) - 28 votes

9. Van Gogh was here (Ellen) - 15 votes

9. 2020's going up in flames, so this cookie will too (Adam) - 13 votes

10. Vote out the turd on Nov 3rd (Maryanna) - 13 votes

11. Bogas on a Zoom (Nancy) - 12 votes

12. Just Do It! (Doug) - 10 votes

13. Out with the old, in with the new (Ellen) - 7 votes

12. Surrounded by Barrs (Ellen) - 7 votes

13. A Covid Christmas (Mia) - 4 votes

14. K-Recovery (Doug) - 3 votes

Additional Entries:

2020 up in Flames (cookie before flames) - Adam

There’s no place like cookie! (Adam)

It was all a conspiracy from BIG BIDET (Maryanna)

One spike mutation to rule them all (Maryanna)

Final Jeopardy (Jamie)

Masked Gingerbread Man (Mia)

Thanks again for voting, until next year!!

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

Vote in the 2020 Boga Bake-Off!

SCROLLING & SUBMIT (some users are having issues): The Scrolling is a little wonky, you need to hover over the images to scroll through cookie images, and click your top three. Keep scrolling to see the Submit button. Sometimes it helps to scroll along the blue side of the page (outside the poll widget) to view more of the cookies, and to get to the SUBMIT button.

While most of you have participated in previous polls, here is a quick history for any newbies:

This year...WE ZOOMED (so predictable)

After testing negative for Covid, Jamie & Mia hosted Robin for a live Bake-Off, while we zoomed with Nancy, Doug, Ellen & Barry in Santa Fe, and cousin Adam and his girlfriend Maryanna (ooooo) in Northern Cali. Not the set-up we hoped for, but it was still a fun time full of good-hearted trash talking, and laughing at each other's ideas.

You will find many of the expected 2020 tropes (how could we not), but hopefully with some fresh and funny interpretations that you've come to expect from the Bogas.

Now it's YOUR turn to vote! Gather round with your loved ones; polls are open until Saturday, 12/26 at Noon EST. SHARE with your friends and family, and thanks for voting :)

Thanks for voting, stay tuned for results!

Thursday, December 26, 2019

2019 Boga Bake-Off Winners, a Historic Year

Every year, we each set out to decorate the best damn cookies we can, with a sense of humor of course. And after many hours of voting, one of us comes out victorious. With at least one other Boga achieving second or third place and some sense of accomplishment. But not this year. This year, Jamie not only won for the fourth year in a row. She didn't only win first and second place. She took the whole damn thing and swept the top three places with Notre Dame, Peloton, and Popeyes. How are Nancy and Robin you ask? Nancy is "mildly perplexed" and disappointed, but enjoys the game regardless. And Robin doesn't "like it, not one bit".

Other highlights: Mia's "Psychedelic Piña" boasted 20 votes for 9th place, beating out all the adult men in the competition who scored the last three places ;) Nancy's "Rudy Colludy" was thought to be a favorite given it's design and clever name, but in the end only scored 23 votes. In total, we got 380 votes spanning from Hawaii to Sri Lanka. Thanks to everyone for voting; the Boga Bake-Off brings us joy each and every year.

Here are the full list of cookies by number of votes with their resident artist.