With­out hav­ing any fa­mil­iar­i­ty with the Span­ish lan­guage, al­most every Trin­bag­on­ian can sing a few lines, or maybe the cho­rus and per­haps even a verse of Ale­gría—one of the most well-loved parang songs by the late and great mu­si­cal gi­ant Daisy Voisin. In­ti­mate­ly in­ter­twined in our cel­e­bra­tion of Christ­mas as Trin­bag­o­ni­ans, parang is tra­di­tion­al folk mu­sic, born and raised in Trinidad and To­ba­go through the in­flu­ences of Venezue­lan mi­grants cen­turies ago.

The scent of fresh­ly baked bread waft­ing through­out her home is not sea­son­al for Jody Valen­tine. Nei­ther is the sight of trays of de­li­cious ap­ple-wal­nut and straw­ber­ry-cheese­cake cin­na­mon rolls cool­ing on the kitchen ta­ble. But there is some­thing about the Yule­tide sea­son that adds a bit of mag­ic to her breads and cin­na­mon rolls.

“My name is Oni­ka Coop­er, and I am a con­tent cre­ator whose love for nat­ur­al, flavour­ful cook­ing grew out of a per­son­al de­ci­sion to live more health-con­scious­ly. I made the choice to sub­sti­tute most preser­v­a­tives and harm­ful in­gre­di­ents, such as MSG, in my di­et, while still cre­at­ing meals that are rich in flavour and fa­mil­iar to many of the dish­es we love. I cu­rate my own menus, show­ing that healthy food does not have to be bor­ing or re­stric­tive.

The year 2025 marks the 45th an­niver­sary of Los Par­ran­deros de UWI —a mile­stone that is re­mark­able by any stan­dard, but par­tic­u­lar­ly in the mu­sic world, where groups and artistes of­ten fade away with alarm­ing speed.

In 2025, two mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Trust of Trinidad and To­ba­go qui­et­ly set an ex­tra­or­di­nary ex­am­ple of com­mit­ment to her­itage ed­u­ca­tion. Stel­la Sandy, a re­tiree, and Au­dra Mitchell, a work­ing pro­fes­sion­al, each at­tend­ed 16 Na­tion­al Trust tours over the course of the year—demon­strat­ing how ac­ces­si­ble, well-cu­rat­ed her­itage ex­pe­ri­ences can in­spire sus­tained pub­lic en­gage­ment.

Be­tween De­cem­ber 5 and 13, Pan Trin­ba­go en­gaged 45 steel­bands and bands in the Lega­cy Na­tion­al Panora­ma Small Con­ven­tion­al Band pre­lim­i­nary com­pe­ti­tion, judged across the North, East, South/Cen­tral, and To­ba­go re­gions.

Glob­al Trinidad and To­ba­go has un­veiled the 16th edi­tion of its dig­i­tal Fash­ion Look­Book, “The Gift of Fash­ion”, show­cas­ing col­lec­tions from 23 emerg­ing and es­tab­lished T&T de­sign­ers. The Look­Book high­lights a wide range of fash­ion, in­clud­ing ready-to-wear, re­sort wear, bridal, cou­ture, jew­ellery, ac­ces­sories, and Car­ni­val, po­si­tion­ing lo­cal de­sign­ers as ex­port-ready tal­ents for both do­mes­tic buy­ers and in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

Lead­ers from busi­ness, law, me­dia, pub­lic health, and na­tion­al gov­er­nance gath­ered on De­cem­ber 4 at Fa­nat­ic Kitchen Stu­dio, Mar­aval, to cel­e­brate a ma­jor mile­stone in the ca­reer of com­mu­ni­ca­tions strate­gist Lisa-Ann Joseph, ho­n­our­ing her 18 years as a con­sul­tant and 33 years shap­ing rep­u­ta­tion and cri­sis man­age­ment across the Caribbean.

In keep­ing with an­nu­al tra­di­tion, thou­sands braved the steep, wind­ing roads of Paramin, Trinidad, for the 16th edi­tion of Parang on D Hills.

Two Sun­days ago, ex­act­ly one week fol­low­ing the open­ing of the new Mega­s­tore in San Juan Courts teamed up with TCL—one of its no­table elec­tron­ics part­ners—to host the TCL View­ing Event. The event was de­signed to show­case TCL’s ad­vanced quan­tum dot mi­ni LED (QD mi­ni LED) tech­nol­o­gy fea­tured in the world’s largest tele­vi­sion—the 115” Mi­ni LED TV, as well as the TCL Art TV.

Stu­dents of Bish­op Anstey Trin­i­ty Col­lege East re­cent­ly had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to mon­e­tise their cre­ativ­i­ty while giv­ing back to their school com­mu­ni­ty at the in­sti­tu­tion’s an­nu­al Christ­mas Pop-Up Mar­ket.

It was a night brim­ming with warmth, mu­sic, and Christ­mas cheer as Joel John brought the true spir­it of the sea­son to life at his con­cert, Christ­mas: A Time To Love. Held on No­vem­ber 23 at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA), the event en­veloped the au­di­ence in fes­tive mag­ic from the very first note.