T&T na­tion­als who are now re­sid­ing in the Unit­ed King­dom are hun­ker­ing down for a qui­et Christ­mas as the coun­try en­tered an­oth­er lock­down in re­sponse to the dis­cov­ery of a new, more eas­i­ly trans­mis­si­ble vari­ant of COVID-19 cir­cu­lat­ing in that coun­try.

“Peo­ple were so geared up to have that time with fam­i­ly, es­pe­cial­ly since March,” Dr Na­tal­ie Doy­on told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

She was born in Port-of-Spain and grew up in Cen­tral Trinidad be­fore mov­ing to the UK 18 years ago.

“(It’s) all round a sad time but we need to do what is right and be safe rather than be sor­ry.”

She typ­i­cal­ly re­turns to Trinidad to spend time with her fam­i­ly around the Christ­mas hol­i­days but this year she would be cel­e­brat­ing it with her hus­band and chil­dren (aged two and four) in the UK one day ear­ly.

“Be­cause we can’t trav­el ei­ther to Eu­rope or Trinidad, for us it’s go­ing to be very sim­ple and qui­et at home. The fact that I have to be on call for emer­gen­cies on Christ­mas day means that its a dou­ble wham­my for me. The day is out any­how. So we will do Christ­mas for the kids the day be­fore be­cause they may not be able to tell the dif­fer­ence and make the best of a bad sit­u­a­tion,” she said.

Au­ro­ra Her­rera has been in the UK for the past four years read­ing for a PhD in Jour­nal­ism and usu­al­ly spends her Christ­mas at home in East Trinidad with her fam­i­ly hav­ing “a Tri­ni Christ­mas.” Now, she said, she’s go­ing to spend it with one of her best friends and try to recre­ate it.

“Hope­ful­ly I’m go­ing to make it to see one of my Trinida­di­an best friends that lives here and we are plan­ning to eat plen­ty fruit­cake and drink some nice punch de creme and just lis­ten to some parang and just do as much as we can to feel like we are back home with our fam­i­lies,” she said.

“We just need to...hun­ker down and just try as best as we can to keep the faith that things would work out and that we’ll be okay.”

To­ba­go-born Tri­cia George told Guardian Me­dia that some mem­bers of the di­as­po­ra were even opt­ing for a vir­tu­al Christ­mas cel­e­bra­tion.

“Peo­ple, if they are so mind­ed, they can still do it vir­tu­al­ly. Be­cause dur­ing the very first lock­down, we had mas­sive par­ties vir­tu­al­ly.”

World-renowned so­pra­no opera singer Anne Fridal is al­so ex­pect­ing a qui­et Christ­mas.

She moved to the UK from T&T al­most 60 years ago and would typ­i­cal­ly be per­form­ing at con­certs and the­atres around the world or in her birth coun­try at this point in the year.

“I’m just try­ing to do the best I can to stay healthy and wear my mask every­where I go, so­cial dis­tance, wash hands,” she said.