Recently the Tribune randomly asked people at Cedar Crest, “What are your plans for this holiday season?” Here are some of the answers:

Barbara and Ray Schmitt: “The tradition in my family is that I hold the grab bag party for the grandchildren. I didn’t want to give that up, and I’m blessed to be at Cedar Crest because I found out that I could reserve a party room, have it catered, and have the grab bag exchange. That’s for six children, six spouses, ten grandchildren— 24 of us! They do all the clean-up, and then I can invite everybody to the pool for a swim during Christmas week!”

Pearl Schwartz and Jim Van Etten, neighbors and close friends: “We have lots of plans. We’ll enjoy ourselves very much here between visits to our families. I join Pearl for her holiday and Pearl will join me for mine. Our holidays are at different times, so we can do that.”

Al and Eleanor Germann: “We’ve got a big family and usually we have everybody over. We can’t do it this year because right after the holidays we’ll be moving to our new apartment home in Arbor View. Until it’s finished, we are temporarily in another Cedar Crest apartment because we sold our house more quickly than expected. So our family will congregate at our son’s or daughter’s, who live nearby. Next year, we thought we might reserve a catering room so we can have everybody here.”

Rita Robinson and Irene Pappas, friends and next door neighbors: “We’re still thinking about how we can top the party we had last year. We had a lot people and a lot of food and refreshments. We set up a bar in the hallway, and both of our homes were open. People said it was the best party they’d ever been to!”