In a world filled with over­flow­ing prod­uct shelves, vi­ral hair trends, and 10-step rou­tines that promise in­stant per­fec­tion, the new year in­vites a qui­eter, more in­ten­tion­al ques­tion: What does my hair re­al­ly need?

The &5678 Dance Stu­dio pre­sent­ed its 2025 dance sea­son, Out­ta This World, at the Na­pari­ma Bowl in San Fer­nan­do from De­cem­ber 12-14. The vi­su­al­ly stun­ning pro­duc­tion trans­formed the stage in­to a vi­brant cos­mos, trac­ing a jour­ney from earth­ly mo­not­o­ny to ce­les­tial won­der.

Parang With Rome once again af­firmed its place on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Christ­mas cal­en­dar as more than 3,000 pa­trons packed the Cipri­ani Labour Col­lege for a high-en­er­gy cel­e­bra­tion of parang mu­sic and fes­tive tra­di­tion.

The Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion is set to bring cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy and hands-on learn­ing to five ad­di­tion­al spe­cial schools be­fore the end of the year, as part of its on­go­ing mis­sion to pro­mote dig­i­tal in­clu­sion for stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties.

The Guardian Need­i­est Cas­es Fund, the old­est reg­is­tered char­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go, con­tin­ued its long­stand­ing tra­di­tion of sup­port­ing vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens with its an­nu­al Christ­mas com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tive, bring­ing joy and a sense of be­long­ing to chil­dren who would oth­er­wise go with­out sea­son­al cel­e­bra­tions.

Vet­er­an crim­i­nal lawyer and Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Is­rael Khan, SC, took time out to say thanks to those who worked with and sup­port­ed him through 2025 last Fri­day.

Shan­ta Gokhale has spent some five decades writ­ing across forms—jour­nal­ism, the­atre crit­i­cism, trans­la­tion, fic­tion and es­says—and across lan­guages, Marathi and Eng­lish. Born in Da­hanu in 1939 in West­ern In­dia and raised in a large, multi­gen­er­a­tional, mul­ti­lin­gual house­hold, she de­vel­oped an ear for the­atre re­hearsals, to neigh­bours’ talk, to the ar­gu­ments and con­fi­dences of a joint fam­i­ly. This nu­ance is ev­i­dent in all her work, from trans­lat­ing Vi­jay Ten­dulkar (a lead­ing Marathi drama­tist of post­colo­nial In­dia) to re­view­ing a play in Mum­bai to de­scrib­ing her own life in this new mem­oir, One Foot on the Ground: A Life Told Through the Body (Speak­ing Tiger Books, 2025).

“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.

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.

It’s a be­lief that qui­et­ly but firm­ly shapes every­thing she does now, from the way she plans meals for pa­tients re­cov­er­ing from surgery to how she teach­es fam­i­lies to cook one din­ner that works for di­a­betes, hy­per­ten­sion, and every­day life to why she chose beet­root as the un­like­ly hero of her first cook­book. But that be­lief wasn’t born in a class­room or a busi­ness plan. It was forged post-surgery and through the re­al­i­sa­tion that com­pli­cat­ed health ad­vice of­ten leaves peo­ple more over­whelmed than be­fore.

For Sher­ry Alexan­der, Christ­mas is far more than a sea­son of lights and dec­o­ra­tions. It is a call­ing root­ed in love and gen­eros­i­ty. An as­tute busi­ness­woman and the force be­hind Al­lied Fam­i­ly Care and Al­lied Home Cen­tre, Alexan­der has built a rep­u­ta­tion not on­ly for busi­ness ex­cel­lence but al­so for trans­form­ing Christ­mas in­to a shared ex­pe­ri­ence of joy for fam­i­lies, chil­dren, work­ers, and com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

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.