On Dec 19, Joel Blaustein (the TD) asked everyone in the club what they thought about taking a week off for Christmas. When he asked, "If we started another tournament next week, who would show up?", about 80% of us raised our hands. So next week, when most people would be spending time with family (or even traveling), most of us are saying it's no problem to show up ( my immediate family doesn't really celebrate Christmas). Even a couple of people who originally said they weren't planning on showing did, although there were some no-shows.

Joel said afterwards the vote was to help the US Census Bureau determine what percentage of the chess-playing population has a life.