Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

The sounds of mu­sic, laugh­ter, and fes­tive cheer filled the streets of Fe­lic­i­ty, Ch­agua­nas, re­cent­ly when Mu­si­cal Kiss – Fam­i­ly and Friends host­ed its an­nu­al Christ­mas con­cert and movie night, bring­ing chil­dren, fam­i­lies, and res­i­dents to­geth­er for an evening of whole­some com­mu­ni­ty cel­e­bra­tion.

Now in its tenth year, the event has be­come a much-an­tic­i­pat­ed fix­ture on the lo­cal Christ­mas cal­en­dar, trans­form­ing the qui­et neigh­bour­hood in­to a vi­brant hub of en­ter­tain­ment and to­geth­er­ness. This year, or­gan­is­ers went a step fur­ther by se­cur­ing ap­provals to cor­don off a sec­tion of Lyle Lane Street, where a large out­door screen was erect­ed for the movie night.

The pro­gramme, which be­gan short­ly af­ter 7 pm, fea­tured an eclec­tic mix of per­for­mances cel­e­brat­ing the fes­tive sea­son and show­cas­ing the di­verse tal­ents of the com­mu­ni­ty. Mem­bers of the Fe­lic­i­ty Church of the Nazarene set the tone with song and dance, while vo­cal­ist J-Rebel de­liv­ered spir­it­ed mu­si­cal ren­di­tions. Adding flair to the evening was flamethrow­er Frank Brit­to, along­side an ex­pres­sive sign-lan­guage in­ter­pre­ta­tion of a Christ­mas car­ol by dancer Ash­ley Bas­deo.

Sea­son­al melodies con­tin­ued with a heart­felt car­ol by Re­celia Jameer, while vil­lager Kr­ish­na George kept the au­di­ence en­ter­tained with a steady stream of hu­mour that had young and old alike in stitch­es.

Event spokesper­son Ni­rala Abra­ham said the ini­tia­tive has grown steadi­ly over the past decade, dri­ven by a de­sire to strength­en com­mu­ni­ty bonds, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son.

She ex­plained that gen­er­ous spon­sor­ship played a key role in this year’s suc­cess, al­low­ing or­gan­is­ers to pro­vide an abun­dance of food and drinks for all in at­ten­dance. Sup­port came from AM­CO (Al­stons Mar­ket­ing, part of the ANSA McAL Group), Mario’s Piz­za, Sacha Cos­met­ics, Vanes­sa’s Kitchen, Abra­ham’s South­ern Sea­clu­sions Guest House of Ce­dros, and sev­er­al oth­er con­trib­u­tors.

De­spite chal­leng­ing eco­nom­ic times, Abra­ham said spon­sors re­mained com­mit­ted to spread­ing joy with­in the com­mu­ni­ty. The event, she not­ed, is part of a broad­er ef­fort by res­i­dents and or­gan­i­sa­tions to fos­ter stronger so­cial ties and cre­ate mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ences for chil­dren.

As the night drew to a close, the glow­ing screen, fes­tive per­for­mances, and shared laugh­ter served as a re­minder that the true spir­it of Christ­mas lies not just in cel­e­bra­tion, but in com­mu­ni­ty, gen­eros­i­ty, and to­geth­er­ness.