All-Star Halloween Practice - Altered Schedule Or No?

blink your eyes and your kiddo is 20!

Now, I have never really cared about Halloween but I speak to the bigger picture and what others have said ---- balance. I want to slap the younger me for not seeing this as clearly then and allowing myself to think I was doing the right thing by being uber-committed on behalf of my kids and their sports (not just cheer... though at least the other sports have the potential for "reward" in the long run) Anyway, my retired CP did best when she had balance in her life - not gym gym gym cheer cheer cheer all the time. While I love the friends my CP made in cheer... she also needed friends with different interests and to be able to spend quality time with those friends. Just my old timer advice for you younger ones with kiddos in the thick of it. (Oh and yes, my CP took two years off - one in middle school and one in HS - and still earned some significant metallic hardware at Worlds).

BTW, one year they got Halloween off but had a mega practice on Easter Sunday (and yes, large faith-based gym) but they got the "golden egg" that year.

Our Mini 1 moved practice to another day of the week for Halloween,

Got the email yesterday that our gym is closing at 5.

No practices Halloween night at our gym. Practices have been rescheduled.

CP's gym is thankfully closed as she would normally have practice on a Tuesday. I would not have made her go if they were open, she's only 10 and loves Halloween; she would just be miserable if she had to miss trick or treating for practice.

I'm pretty sure our gym is closed, but either way, younger teams are definitely canceled (and a makeup offered). I'm a major stickler for not missing. If you're sick, go watch. However, I'd keep my kid home on Halloween. Cheer takes a lot of their time and it's a huge commitment for such young kids. This is too much to have them miss also. I'm thankful our gym believes in letting kids be kids.

Seriously amazes me how different Halloween is in the US to here in the UK! On my street barely anybody (particularly elderly people) even opens their door; or they turn the lights out! We had 1 trick or treater last year!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

codycheerbabex said:

Seriously amazes me how different Halloween is in the US to here in the UK! On my street barely anybody (particularly elderly people) even opens their door; or they turn the lights out! We had 1 trick or treater last year!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

I feel like it has grown tremendously since I was a kid. Adult costumes are probably equally if not more a huge part of the sales each year. My kids still love it but as an adult I think the last time I dressed up was in 1996, the last Halloween before I had kids. We don't get any trick or treaters on our street (it is long and a dead end) but there are some neighborhoods in my town where the amount of candy handed out is insane. There is one house that goes full out in decorating and is extremely impressive.

The Halloween Parade in NYC is truly something everyone should go to watch at least once in their lives. So fun.

@TheVipersMom Looks like your gym may be one of the only ones still holding practice on Halloween. Hopefully all of the kids feel the same way as yours and do not mind.

Here Halloween isn't just trick or treating. It our annual block party for adults and kids (30 homes) with tons of food and drink before TOTing. I wouldn't trade those years of memories for anything!

Halloween is HUGE in our area. I grew up going to my grandparents area and it wasn't uncommon for people to hand out full sized candy bars back to back. I expected things to be scaled down by the time I brought my kiddos to the same area, but nope. Full sized candy bars, juice boxes and driveway treats are still a thing---even some adult beverages offered at some houses. There are festivals, city wide events, church styled events weeks leading up to the big day.

I'm one of those parents who tries to make each holiday as magical as possible because, let's be real, the real world isn't butterflies and uniforms all the time so if I can keep that magic alive for the first decade of their lives by gosh, by golly it's happening. No sport or activity will ever invade a holiday unless we chose for it too---like holiday runs, I can deal with those, but you better believe the massive Halloween race oldest is running is the night of October 28th, not October 31st.

Halloween is huge is our area, there is a big trunk or treat on the 26th that the main employer in our area puts on. Practice for CP’s team actually got cancelled for that night and for Halloween with their showcase in between on the 28th. But her coach canceled for both nights, they are a youth team so they could go participate in both the trunk or treat and on Halloween and are meeting early for a short practice before the showcase.

For me she is 10, she needs the balance between cheer and outside of cheer. She also does 4H, we put her in 4H so she could see that there were things outside of cheer and she ended up really liking it. She almost missed a practice during fair time for 4H, if the schedule for 4H hadn’t of changed I would of let her miss that practice just like I would of let her missed for Halloween.

Halloween is the only event (including school events) where I want us to be in our little town. Everyone heads to the center of town and TorTs at all of the old Victorian Houses. Many of the houses have grownup drinks and shots available too. One of the yards is converted by two Broadway stage designers into a full haunted experience. This is the one night where CP wants to be with her school friends over cheer friends. Thank the cheer gods that the gym closes, so I don't have to make a choice

CheerBank said:

@TheVipersMom Looks like your gym may be one of the only ones still holding practice on Halloween. Hopefully all of the kids feel the same way as yours and do not mind.

Click to expand...

My gym and the OP's gym unless we are at the same place [emoji23]

We have practice but everyone could definitely still trick or treat/ it may be a little shortened. With neighborhoods being across the street/ and all around very close. People could start the second practice ends, or go early before practice if they really wanted. (For Practices starting at 7:30) My kids main team doesn't practice but she is a fill in on another team since someone quit and that team does practice on Halloween. 5 of our 19 teams practice Tuesday. Two of them are senior teams. One of them is a show team so kids under 6- but practice ends at 6 so they could easily go afterwards. Then the other two teams are junior teams.



Funny thing is my kid has trick or treated only 1 time in 4 years. The time she actually trick or treated was the 1 time in the last 4years that she actually had practice on Halloween.

It was only because practice was 5-7 and almost the whole j3 went trick or treating together in a nearby subdivision. So practice actually encouraged them to go trick or treating. My daughter always says she rather go eat at a nice restaurant then get candy.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

TheVipersMom said:

My gym and the OP's gym unless we are at the same place [emoji23]

We have practice but everyone could definitely still trick or treat/ it may be a little shortened. With neighborhoods being across the street/ and all around very close. People could start the second practice ends, or go early before practice if they really wanted. (For Practices starting at 7:30) My kids main team doesn't practice but she is a fill in on another team since someone quit and that team does practice on Halloween. 5 of our 19 teams practice Tuesday. Two of them are senior teams. One of them is a show team so kids under 6- but practice ends at 6 so they could easily go afterwards. Then the other two teams are junior teams.



Funny thing is my kid has trick or treated only 1 time in 4 years. The time she actually trick or treated was the 1 time in the last 4years that she actually had practice on Halloween.

It was only because practice was 5-7 and almost the whole j3 went trick or treating together in a nearby subdivision. So practice actually encouraged them to go trick or treating. My daughter always says she rather go eat at a nice restaurant then get candy.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Click to expand...

Story of my life since age 5 lol.

Here, if you practice on Halloween, you will miss all the legal hours to trick or treat-most of our teams practice from 6:00-8:00 or 6:00-8:30. Add that pretty much the minimum drive to go anywhere is 30 minutes and there's no time to ToT. Most suburbs limit ToT to 8:00 or 9:00, and if you go before you need to leave for practice, no one would be home!

I'm very glad the gym is closed on Halloween. We have a themed practice the Sunday before, and have a Trunk or Treat/party as a gym bonding activity after practice on Sunday.