The must-read cou­ples’ guide to hav­ing a stress free Christ­mas, filled with more hap­pi­ness and less pres­sure by learn­ing how to avoid fam­i­ly fights and oth­er pop­u­lar mishaps that oc­cur around this sea­son.

I have come to re­alise that it was no ac­ci­dent that I was po­si­tioned, last year, in the fall, at New York’s icon­ic Fash­ion In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy when the Com­mon­wealth Fash­ion Ex­change (CFE) dis­play was show­cased at the Pomer­antz Art and De­sign Cen­ter, for the first time out­side of the UK. There, I proud­ly wit­nessed the won­drous ‘Moth’, an in­tel­li­gent de­sign by Meil­ing us­ing the prin­ci­ples of sus­tain­able ex­cel­lence. For this am­bi­tious CFE ini­tia­tive, part­nered with the sus­tain­abil­i­ty con­sul­tan­cy, Eco-Age, the for­mi­da­ble de­sign­er was paired with Do­mini­can ar­ti­san Vanes­sa Win­ston whose corset belt, in­tri­cate­ly dec­o­rat­ed with ham­mered but­ter­flies, matched or­gan­i­cal­ly with her co­conut-fi­bre wo­ven gown. I re­mem­ber ob­serv­ing the guests, from the world of art and fash­ion, be­com­ing en­am­oured by the hand-em­broi­dered gown of or­gandie, silk and leather, trans­par­ent­ly sheath­ing a pair of trousers made from up-cy­cled In­di­an fab­ric. In ad­di­tion to my own land­mark in­road at FIT, I was fur­ther con­sumed with na­tion­al pride and be­sot­ted with re­gion­al pres­tige.

Ra­ele­cia Tiffanie Hus­bands has been a make­up artist and nail tech­ni­cian since she was 17 years old. Al­though she spent a short time work­ing in the cor­po­rate world, her love for artistry and the beau­ty in­dus­try took her right back to where she start­ed. Be­ing a young moth­er had a huge part to play in her de­ci­sion to fol­low her heart and step in­to the world of beau­ty full-time. This de­ci­sion al­lowed her to have a ca­reer as well as the nec­es­sary flex­i­bil­i­ty to care for her daugh­ter. To­day, Ra­ele­cia is known by many for her fab­u­lous nail tech­niques and her range of make­up looks for mul­ti­ple events. We caught up with Ra­ele­cia to learn more about her jour­ney and to find out her best tips for the Christ­mas sea­son. This is what she had to share:

It is that time of year again when you sit and make your Christ­mas list. As an avid read­er, my go-to gifts are gen­er­al­ly books. You might think this would make my life eas­i­er - it doesn’t! I have to fig­ure out which book to get for each per­son that they will ab­solute­ly en­joy and love. I con­sid­er it a per­son­al af­front if I give you a book as a gift and you don’t read it, or you read it but didn’t en­joy it. It is be­cause of this per­son­al pres­sure, that putting to­geth­er a Christ­mas list gives me all types of anx­i­ety. I con­sid­er books the best kind of gift to give, out­side of mon­ey (which I will use to buy books) and plane tick­ets. If you are still putting to­geth­er your Christ­mas list, here are some amaz­ing books and the sug­gest­ed per­son in your life to get it for:

Last year around this time, I sat in a Stan­dard Three class ob­serv­ing and lis­ten­ing to a con­ver­sa­tion be­tween some Stan­dard Three boys. One stu­dent was boast­ing that he was go­ing to get an iPhone X for Christ­mas—a present I knew his par­ents could not af­ford. A stu­dent’s re­sponse was that the boast­ful stu­dent was ly­ing and he could not af­ford it, in not such a nice man­ner. The boast­ful stu­dent then said that his un­cle was go­ing to buy it for him. An­oth­er stu­dent then pro­ceed­ed to state that the iPhone X came out last year so he was lame for re­ceiv­ing this present.

Al­most every­one who works out would at some point in their wak­ing life em­brace the idea of hav­ing a six pack. While this is very at­tain­able for many folks, the same just re­mains an idea for oth­ers. Ask the ques­tion and you will get so many dif­fer­ent an­swers; it would make your head spin. So how do you re­al­ly fil­ter out the noise? The most im­por­tant fac­tor of hav­ing any chance of an ap­pear­ance of abs starts in your kitchen. Yes, your di­et is key. How­ev­er be­fore I go on, there’s a con­ver­sa­tion to be had about train­ing be­cause they both go hand in hand.

Imag­ine the ex­cru­ci­at­ing pain of a toothache, but in­stead of it be­ing in­side of your mouth, it is in­side of your ear and even down the side of your neck. An ear­ache can tru­ly be de­bil­i­tat­ing, and al­though it more fre­quent­ly oc­curs in chil­dren, it can hap­pen to just about any­one, and here’s why.

Many of us share sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments to­wards ac­ne break­outs and their frus­trat­ing na­ture. What makes them even worse is that they tend to leave un­want­ed scars on the face and oth­er vis­i­ble ar­eas of the body. For many of us who suf­fer from ac­ne, these scars are a con­stant re­minder of the painful and both­er­some ac­ne con­di­tion that of­ten­times af­fects our self-es­teem and con­fi­dence.

Learn­ing to be con­tent and thank­ful for all the bless­ings in your re­la­tion­ship in­stead of harp­ing on the short­com­ings.

It nev­er oc­curred to me to think deeply about Car­ni­val as a cel­e­bra­tion of free­dom un­til re­cent­ly. Al­though we are all taught from a young age the cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal roots of the fes­ti­val, (I have dis­tinct mem­o­ries of many projects in­volv­ing scrap­books, glit­ter glue and pic­tures of tra­di­tion­al mas char­ac­ters with de­scrip­tions next to them) when you grow up in Trinidad, it’s easy to take for grant­ed this free­dom of ex­pres­sion that is ac­tu­al­ly an anom­aly in many parts of the world, es­pe­cial­ly for women and girls.

At the age of 37 cer­ti­fied in­te­ri­or de­sign­er Vani Ma­haraj has been able to ac­com­plish a lot pro­fes­sion­al­ly and per­son­al­ly and there is a lot more in store for her. With eight years’ ex­pe­ri­ence, re­sult­ing from hard work and most­ly from the be­lief that the sky’s the lim­it, she has been suc­cess­ful­ly man­ag­ing her pri­vate busi­ness, Di­vine Liv­ing, along with her team.

Abi­an­ka Alexan­der Dick, bet­ter known as Ab­by, was born and raised in Gold­en Lane, Mt Thomas, To­ba­go, to an awe­some and lov­ing ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly. Her moth­er left her when she was just two-years-old to pur­sue Nurs­ing in Trinidad. Ab­by al­ways want­ed to fol­low in her moth­er’s foot­steps to be­come a nurse but felt like she want­ed to be more than just that. Twen­ty-six years lat­er, she is now an Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Health Nurse, Su­per­vi­sor and wor­ship leader who is hap­pi­ly mar­ried.