Hey hey!
Time for another Christmas update.
This is another all-English text about this year and what’s gone well.
You can listen to this as a podcast here on YouTube, or if you prefer, on Apple Podcasts or over on Spotify.
Thanks for being here, and thanks for all your support these last 10 or so years that I’ve been writing online.
Let’s go…
A Christmas Message from Daniel
It’s been a busy year around here.
The last few days of 2024, I was in Dubai with my wife’s family. Traffic in Dubai is insane – especially on big holidays. So we didn’t go out, we just celebrated New Year’s at the house. It was very relaxing.
A couple of days after that, my wife and I went to Abu Dhabi for our flight back to Barcelona. This was my first time in the Middle East, and quite a bit better than I expected. The food was great, and I liked Abu Dhabi more than Dubai. We stayed for several days, then came back to Barcelona for Epiphany.
In March I published a book about phrasal verbs. It’s sort of an update and improvement on my first book, and I think it turned out pretty well. It’s called Phrasal Verbs en Inglés: los más usados and you can get it on Amazon.
In total, it looks like I’ve published about 19 books over the last 10 or 12 years. Some of them have multiple editions. Like I said, I keep myself busy.
In 2025, I also made an episode of the Aprende Más Inglés podcast every Monday, all year long. We’re currently on episode 399, so I’ve been at this for quite some time now. Most of the episodes are on YouTube if you’d like to listen. Speaking of YouTube, I also made a lot of videos over there.
You should definitely check out my YouTube channel if you haven’t recently.
If I’ve counted correctly, I made 35 videos for YouTube this year. Here’s a pretty good one about the difference between work and job in English.
Travelling all over the place (and becoming Spanish)
Over the summer, my wife and I mostly stayed in Barcelona. But in October her company wanted her to go to a conference in Las Vegas, so we planned a trip to the US. She’d never been to the US before. Of course, I grew up there, and I decided to go and show her around a bit.
We went to New York and Phoenix together – Phoenix is my home town, out in the Arizona desert. I also went to Portland, Oregon, to see my dad.
It was an experience. I’d barely ever been to New York before, so I enjoyed going to the museums there. Other than that, it was very expensive. Anyway, it was good seeing my parents. My wife liked the US a lot, but we both prefer living in Spain.
When we got back to Spain, I received some good news from the government: I had finally been granted Spanish nationality!
This is something I had been working on for many years. When I moved to Spain in 2004, I quickly decided I was going to live here “forever” if possible. But Spanish bureaucracy is slow and it took a long time to renew my residence permits, pay taxes, and finally, get my Spanish passport.
Final thoughts on 2025 – and gratitude
A few weeks later, we went back to the US, to a town in Florida. (Again, this was because of my wife’s company.)
We stayed at a resort that had excellent views of the sunset every evening.
Florida was much better than I imagined – we saw dolphins out in the bay, and were able to visit some typical American things like a massive Walmart store. It was authentic Americana, and I loved it.
(Within Spain, I travelled to Madrid a couple of times, as well as to places in Catalonia like Lleida, Ripoll, and even to a wedding in the countryside near the town of Olot. I’m also making a serious effort to learn Catalan, finally, after several years of living in Barcelona.)
When I was younger, I’d often celebrate Christmas with Spanish friends who would play the official Christmas message from the King on the TV. First it was King Juan Carlos I, then it was King Felipe VI.
It’s been a while since I saw the official Christmas message from the King. (I hope Felipe is doing okay.)
Now that I’m Spanish I couldn’t be happier. It’s been quite an adventure writing this blog (and my others) since 2010. With any luck, I’ll be here for a while longer. And I couldn’t do it all without you, my readers and listeners. So thanks very much, and I hope you have a great Christmas, and New Year.
See you in 2026!
Yours,
Daniel.
P.S. If you want to learn much more English in the coming year, sign up for my emails here. I send a couple of messages per week, and you can stop receiving them whenever you want. Thanks!