After Making a 'Rare' Exception to Their Rules, 1 Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Was Forced to Sit Out a Christmas Game (Exclusive)
- - After Making a 'Rare' Exception to Their Rules, 1 Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Was Forced to Sit Out a Christmas Game (Exclusive)
Zoey LyttleDecember 26, 2025 at 6:00 AM
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Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders
Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Marissa Phillips. -
Marissa Phillips joined the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders in 2022, when the squad made a rare exception and allowed 37 women on the squad, one more than the usual headcount
To accommodate the additional dancer, one woman would rotate out of each game, and Phillips' day off happened to land on Christmas Eve
The cheerleader — who is currently on her third season with the NFL team — tells PEOPLE how she spent the extra special day off that year
When the Dallas Cowboys play at home on Christmas Day, everyone involved with the franchise has to give up a significant portion of their holiday to the game, including the team's famed cheerleaders.
This year, the NFL players will face off against the Washington Commanders in Maryland, meaning the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders get the day off from work this Dec. 25. However, if a home game falls on Christmas or Christmas Eve, all 36 dancers are tapped to perform — unless, of course, there are more than enough squad members to fill the field.
That just so happened to be the case during DCC star Marissa Phillips' rookie season. 2022 was somewhat of an anomaly for the iconic NFL cheerleading team; they were stacked with 37 women that year, one more than they typically welcome.
Marissa Phillips
Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Marissa Phillips with her fellow squad members.
"It's happened before, but it's pretty rare that they take extra," Phillips tells PEOPLE three years later. Instead of adjusting all of the routines to feature an additional dancer, they proceeded by rotating out one cheerleader each game. Every member of the squad sat out for one game of the season, and Phillips' day off somewhat luckily landed on Christmas Eve.
"So I didn't dance that game, but the cool thing about sitting out was you got to sit in the press box, and you got to eat all the food you wanted," Phillips recalls. "I was watching the game, I was watching the girls dance, and I had a whole plate of Christmas Eve food."
While she happened to be uninvolved in the on-field action, she was still required to show up for the routine game-day commute with her squad. Usually, that requires the women to board a bus back to the Star, the Dallas Cowboys headquarters in Frisco, Texas, but Phillips notes that the team made a special exception for the holiday.
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"They allowed people to get straight in the car with their families. Some girls would get on Christmas Eve flights to go straight home, which was really sweet," she shares. Phillips says she and her loved ones left the stadium and drove directly to their house in Austin after that 2022 game wrapped.
"We were driving back and it was midnight," she remembers with a laugh. "We were like, 'At least we're going to make it before Santa does.'"
on People
Source: “AOL Sports”
