Wendy Fitzwilliam is as tal­ent­ed (and as beau­ti­ful) as they come. In 1998, two months be­fore her fi­nal ex­ams at law school, Fitzwilliam be­came the sec­ond Trinida­di­an and the sec­ond woman of colour to walk away with the Miss Uni­verse ti­tle. Dur­ing her reign, the moth­er of four-and-a-half-year-old Ailan, was ho­n­oured by the Unit­ed Na­tions and be­stowed the ti­tle of UN­AIDS and UNF­PA Good­will Am­bas­sador for her work in HIV/AIDS ed­u­ca­tion and aware­ness. That same year, Fitzwilliam found­ed The Hi­bis­cus Foun­da­tion to bring AIDS aware­ness to the fore in T&T and as­sist chil­drens' homes.

To­day, the for­mer beau­ty queen is the host of her self-ti­tled talk show, The Wendy Fitzwilliam Show, which airs on Heart­beat103.5fm and the au­thor of her first book–Let­ters to Ailan. Launched in 2009, the book chron­i­cles her life dur­ing her preg­nan­cy and ad­dress­es her choice to be­come and re­main a sin­gle moth­er. Celebri­ty Christ­mas re­cent­ly caught up with the busy 30-some­thing-year-old busi­ness­woman to find out how she spends the hol­i­days.

Q: What do you think of when you hear the word Christ­mas?

A: Christ­mas means to me church, pastelles and shar­ing with not on­ly my mom, but the peo­ple in my old neigh­bour­hood. My dad's birth­day is Christ­mas Eve, so Christ­mas al­ways means fam­i­ly time.

Q: How ear­ly do you start your Christ­mas prepa­ra­tions?

A: Not ear­ly at all! The first week of De­cem­ber I pre­pare for Christ­mas but the buy­ing of the gifts for fam­i­ly and friends, I do all year round. I trav­el a lot so if I see some­thing that my sis­ter, mom or fam­i­ly would ap­pre­ci­ate, I buy it and give as gifts.

Q: Do you have a fam­i­ly Christ­mas tra­di­tion?

A: Nope. We do not, but I am cre­at­ing my own with Ailan. My par­ents are di­vorced so my sis­ter and I have com­mit­ted to spend­ing Christ­mas Eve with our dad every year. I do my best to make sure that every­thing is in or­der at home so that I can cel­e­brate his birth­day with him and his wife, my son and my sis­ter.

Q: Have your views on Christ­mas changed from when you were a child?

A: Oh yes! Tremen­doul­sy. When I was a child, like all chil­dren, Christ­mas time meant great gifts and good hol­i­days. As a Ro­man Catholic, you learn the im­por­tance of Christ­mas, but it has be­come very com­meri­cialised. The im­por­tant mes­sage is lost to a large ex­tent in to­day's world. Be­cause of Ailan, I am more acute­ly aware of Christ­mas' true mean­ing–The birth of Christ. It has re­al­ly be­come down­time with fam­i­ly and church. It's al­so the qui­etest time of the year for me. It's when I re­flect on the last year and plan for the year ahead and just get in touch with me.

Q: Who does the Christ­mas cook­ing in your fam­i­ly?

A: Mom­my and will al­ways be mom­my...And my sis­ter.

Q: What is your 'must have' Christ­mas dish?

A: The tra­di­tion­al, de­li­cious, beef pastelle with plen­ty raisons, ground beef and pork!

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Q: What would be your ide­al 2010 Christ­mas present?

A: A three month va­ca­tion! The first month, I will be ex­plor­ing In­dia.

The sec­ond month, I would want to spend in the Asian Pa­cif­ic with a cou­ple weeks in Viet­nam.

The last month will be on the East Coast of Africa and the last three weeks of that month will end with me do­ing noth­ing but ly­ing on a beach in the Mal­dives look­ing at the wa­ter, swim­ming and eat­ing with Ailan.

Q: What is your Christ­mas wish for T&T?

A: I would like us all to ac­cept our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in­di­vid­u­al­ly, to col­lec­tive­ly, pos­i­tive­ly re­form our so­ci­ety. Once we get that, every­thing else will fall in­to place.