Cherisse Moe

We’re on­ly halfway through the year, but for those who cel­e­brate Christ­mas in Ju­ly, it’s the most won­der­ful time!

For the Scrooges out there, hear us out.

Hol­i­day-themed events are pop­ping up across the coun­try, a sign that what once felt like a nov­el­ty has grown in­to a tra­di­tion of its own. One of the biggest cel­e­bra­tions is host­ed by the Na­tion­al Parang As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NPATT), whose sig­na­ture event, Parang Un­der the Stars, now marks its fifth edi­tion.

Sched­uled for Ju­ly 25 at St Michael’s in Mara­cas, the event was cre­at­ed for die-hard parang lovers who can’t wait un­til Oc­to­ber for the Christ­mas sea­son to be­gin.

Joanne Brig­gs, Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer for NPATT, says the de­mand has spo­ken for it­self.

“So far, at the end of each edi­tion we are asked, ‘al­lyuh hav­ing it again next year?’ or de­mand, ‘make sure you let us know when tick­ets ready, eh.’”

“Parang Un­der the Stars or PUTS, as we fond­ly call it, was in­spired by a lo­cal ra­dio sta­tion’s cam­paign to cel­e­brate Christ­mas in the mid­dle of the year—per­haps in­spired by coun­tries that ex­pe­ri­ence crispy, win­ter weath­er. While we en­joy our trop­i­cal months on this side of the world, it was a great mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy, and we homed in on that to cre­ate and de­vel­op this event.”

In the past, the crowd typ­i­cal­ly leaned to­ward old­er gen­er­a­tions raised on house-to-house parang, but Joanne has no­ticed a younger au­di­ence be­gin­ning to trick­le in. Last year, some knew every word to clas­sics like Rio Man­zanares. “Then there were those who were raised by lovers of parang and danced the night away non-stop.”

It’s not sur­pris­ing. Few things cre­ate nos­tal­gia quite like the open­ing chords of a beloved parang tune. When a band strikes up a clas­sic on stage—whether it’s a Daisy Voisin or a Lara favourite—or adapts a pop­u­lar Latin song to a parang rhythm, it takes you back.

This month’s stag­ing will fea­ture ten bands, in­clud­ing two of the as­so­ci­a­tion’s newest mem­bers: Los Com­pañeros and El Sonido de la Músi­ca. Lo­cal ven­dors, ar­ti­sans and en­ter­tain­ers will al­so be part of the cel­e­bra­tion, turn­ing the evening in­to a show­case of lo­cal tal­ent.

“Our per­form­ers are the sto­ry­tellers of our tra­di­tions,” Joanne says. “They pre­serve the rich lega­cy of parang while in­spir­ing younger gen­er­a­tions.”

For many artistes, Christ­mas in Ju­ly has al­so be­come an im­por­tant part of the en­ter­tain­ment cal­en­dar.

Parang Queen Mar­cia Mi­ran­da says her sched­ule is al­ready fill­ing with book­ings. “I do all my hits along with some ca­lyp­so and so­ca songs,” the “Bring Out The Ham” and “Roast Fowl” singer tells us. “The au­di­ences are in the same spir­it as they are in De­cem­ber. I think it’s be­cause of the spe­cial feel­ing of Christ­mas in the air.”

Of course, no hol­i­day cel­e­bra­tion would be com­plete with­out the food.

Su­per­mar­kets and restau­rants are tap­ping in­to the grow­ing in­ter­est, pro­mot­ing Christ­mas lunch­es and week­end brunch­es with the full works—baked ham, roast pork, turkey, pastelles, and pi­geon peas.

Bak­ers like Giselle Fer­gu­son-Heller, own­er of “Oh Joy,” have jumped on board, too. She says or­ders be­gin ar­riv­ing al­most as soon as she re­leas­es her sea­son­al menu. Her Bai­ley’s-in­fused Christ­mas Cheese­cake, fea­tur­ing swirls of melt­ed milk choco­late on a bed of Oreo crust, is a best­seller. “Above the creamy Bai­ley’s cheese­cake base is a moist, rich choco­late cake and every­thing is wrapped up in a vel­vety smooth choco­late frost­ing. It’s the stuff that wish­es to San­ta are made of!”

While busi­ness­es en­joy the com­mer­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties, many peo­ple sim­ply wel­come an­oth­er ex­cuse to re­live a sea­son they love.

Su­san Her­nan­dez is one of them.

“I was born on De­cem­ber 25, so I sup­port any­thing that brings the Yule­tide sea­son in­to the spot­light. Once a year isn’t enough for me,” she says. “My co-work­ers have got­ten ac­cus­tomed to me and my an­tics for the past four years. I dec­o­rate my of­fice with a small Christ­mas tree and some colour­ful lights on my desk. At home, I play so­ca parang and eat meals like bread and ham with black cake, and sip on some ponche de crème through­out the month. It makes me hap­py.”

The roots of the mid-year Yule­tide

The glob­al phe­nom­e­non of Christ­mas in Ju­ly ac­tu­al­ly start­ed with a mix of sum­mer camp fun and Hol­ly­wood mar­ket­ing.

Dur­ing the sum­mer of 1933, a girls’ sum­mer camp called Camp Key­stone in North Car­oli­na ded­i­cat­ed two full days to the hol­i­day theme on Ju­ly 24 and 25. The camp set­up in­clud­ed tra­di­tion­al hol­i­day el­e­ments in­clud­ing a dec­o­rat­ed tree, ex­changed gifts, and a mock San­ta Claus ap­pear­ance. The con­cept gained wide­spread com­mer­cial trac­tion and cul­tur­al vis­i­bil­i­ty fol­low­ing the re­lease of a 1940 Hol­ly­wood com­e­dy film ti­tled Christ­mas in Ju­ly.

Over the sub­se­quent decades, cor­po­rate pro­mo­tions trans­formed this niche event in­to a mas­sive sum­mer re­tail sea­son. Amer­i­can re­tail roll­outs and sum­mer sales dur­ing this pe­ri­od now gen­er­ate over $24 bil­lion in on­line spend­ing alone. Busi­ness­es across parts of the Unit­ed King­dom and Eu­rope have sim­i­lar­ly adopt­ed the theme to dri­ve off-sea­son com­mer­cial rev­enue.

The phe­nom­e­non has es­tab­lished a foot­print in oth­er coun­tries, where lo­cal tourism and en­ter­tain­ment sec­tors lever­age the hol­i­day spir­it.