St Joseph’s Con­vent, San Fer­nan­do, burst in­to full hol­i­day mag­ic on De­cem­ber 11, as stu­dents packed the Dr Sis­ter Phyl­lis Wharfe Au­di­to­ri­um for the school’s much-an­tic­i­pat­ed An­nu­al Song and Dance Christ­mas Con­cert and In­ter-House Com­pe­ti­tion, The Star of Beth­le­hem. By the end of the evening, House Blessed Ann Marie had com­plet­ed a clean sweep, cap­tur­ing top ho­n­ours in all three ma­jor cat­e­gories.

Five hous­es—Blessed Ann Marie, St Xavier, St Joseph, Notre Dame and St There­sa—lit up the stage with pol­ished clas­si­cal vo­cals, imag­i­na­tive chore­og­ra­phy and spir­it­ed parang per­for­mances. A pan­el of ex­pert judges faced the dif­fi­cult task of se­lect­ing win­ners, as the stan­dard of tal­ent on dis­play was noth­ing short of spec­tac­u­lar.

The night opened with the Clas­si­cal cat­e­go­ry, where each house de­liv­ered a poised and well-bal­anced choral pre­sen­ta­tion. St Joseph set the tone with a serene ren­di­tion of We Three Kings, fol­lowed by St Xavier’s solemn O Come, O Come Em­manuel. Notre Dame lift­ed the en­er­gy with Wor­ship the King, while St There­sa of­fered a warm, tra­di­tion­al take on The First Noel. Blessed Ann Marie closed the seg­ment with a bold, full-voiced O Come, All Ye Faith­ful.

That con­fi­dent fi­nale se­cured Blessed Ann Marie first place, fol­lowed by St There­sa in sec­ond, St Joseph in third, Notre Dame in fourth and St Xavier in fifth.

If the au­di­ence be­lieved the ex­cite­ment had peaked, the Dance cat­e­go­ry quick­ly proved oth­er­wise. Al­though dance is not a for­mal sub­ject at the school, stu­dents de­liv­ered per­for­mances brim­ming with cre­ativ­i­ty, rhythm and fes­tive flair.

St Joseph opened the seg­ment dressed in cheer­ful Christ­mas py­ja­mas, draw­ing the au­di­ence in­to a live­ly mod­ern rou­tine in­fused with hip-hop ac­cents. The au­di­to­ri­um erupt­ed when a danc­ing “San­ta” ap­peared and dropped ef­fort­less­ly in­to a per­fect split.

St Xavier fol­lowed with a vi­brant cul­tur­al cel­e­bra­tion, blend­ing African-in­spired move­ment with clas­sics such as Silent Night and It’s the Most Won­der­ful Time of the Year. Their per­for­mance felt like a joy­ful hol­i­day pa­rade.

Notre Dame charmed the crowd with a play­ful sto­ry­telling con­cept. Af­ter be­ing told it was bed­time, the py­ja­ma-clad dancers cheek­i­ly dimmed the lights and con­tin­ued danc­ing in se­cret, de­liv­er­ing an up­beat rou­tine to Christ­mas (Ba­by Please Come Home) that had the au­di­ence smil­ing through­out.

St There­sa brought el­e­gance to the stage with a clas­si­cal dance pre­sen­ta­tion set to Lit­tle Drum­mer Boy and Sug­ar Plum Fairy, ex­e­cut­ed with poise and grace.

Clos­ing the cat­e­go­ry, Blessed Ann Marie de­liv­ered a show-stop­ping fu­sion of African and In­di­an styles, cel­e­brat­ing Caribbean Christ­mas tra­di­tions through se­lec­tions in­clud­ing Black Cake and Sor­rel, Lit­tle Drum­mer Boy and It’s Christ­mas.

When the re­sults were an­nounced, Blessed Ann Marie again claimed first place, fol­lowed by Notre Dame in sec­ond, St Xavier in third, St Joseph in fourth and St There­sa in fifth.

The grand fi­nale—the Parang com­pe­ti­tion—sent the au­di­to­ri­um buzzing with ex­cite­ment. With Span­ish rhythms, syn­chro­nised chore­og­ra­phy and vi­brant house colours, the en­er­gy was elec­tric.

St Joseph opened with a joy­ful Can­te­mos Con Ale­gría, earn­ing en­thu­si­as­tic ap­plause for their live­ly stag­ing. St Xavier sus­tained the mo­men­tum with a smooth and spir­it­ed per­for­mance of La Ded­i­cación. Notre Dame fol­lowed in el­e­gant blue, de­liv­er­ing a heart­felt ren­di­tion of La Prome­sa, while St There­sa raised the tem­po with a live­ly, crowd-pleas­ing Jesús La Razón.

Then came Blessed Ann Marie, dressed in strik­ing red and poised to seal their sweep. Their fiery per­for­mance of Can­tan­do Glo­ria ig­nit­ed the stage and se­cured yet an­oth­er de­ci­sive vic­to­ry.

Fi­nal stand­ings in the Parang cat­e­go­ry placed Blessed Ann Marie first, St Xavier sec­ond, St Joseph third, Notre Dame fourth and St There­sa fifth.

With pas­sion, cre­ativ­i­ty and Christ­mas spir­it ra­di­at­ing from every cor­ner of the stage, this year’s con­cert proved one of the most mem­o­rable yet. For House Blessed Ann Marie, the night end­ed in true hol­i­day tri­umph — sweep­ing all three cat­e­gories and shin­ing bright­ly as the stars of Beth­le­hem.