Episode 47: Christmas 2025

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to As the Dinoson's Turn, where we chronicle the adventures of the Dinoson family. A seemingly ordinary family from Iowa who decided, hey, you only live once, so let's move to Portugal. And now your hosts, Jason and Tracy Dynason.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Welcome to another episode of As the Dinason's Turn. Today we'll talk about Christmas time in Portugal. It is that time of year, and they definitely celebrate Christmas in Portugal, and we are living through it.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

I I love this time of year. Like everything about it. The moment the lights start coming up, I'm like, oh, they're putting up all of the lights. Like it is light everywhere. I love a Christmas light. Like so much so that lights behind me, these stay up all year round. One that helps with light in the living room, but two, I love them and they make me happy. Um and they do change colors, so they don't have to be multicolored all the time, but they generally are. Um so Christmas lights is definitely a piece of that. Um, I'm not a fan of them, but I do love the smell of roasting chestnuts. Kind of smoky, like there's just something about it on the streets that that can like combines with kind of like the damp and the the rain, and it just it smells like Christmas time for me. Like it just does. I just love it. And the spirit, like it's like it's just, I feel like it's everywhere. It makes me happy. Christmas markets. I love Christmas markets this weekend.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Now, as people listen to this, it'll be we'll have done this already, but we're going to head to Spain. Not too far of a drive, really. Isn't it like an hour or so?

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Yeah, it's just an hour. Yeah. We are going to Vigo. Yeah. Vigo has one of the largest Christmas light displays and also one of the biggest Christmas markets and one of the best in all of Europe. And we are going. It's going to be fantastic. There's a whole group of us getting together. Um, we're going with some of our friends here in town, and we're going to drive up and enjoy the lights in the market together, which is great. Because one, I've always wanted to do it. Um, two, it also is a way for us to like experience markets different places because I we still haven't done the Braga Christmas market or the Porto or Gimaraish yet, but we will do all of these markets. That's like the whole purpose of this time. You've got to go and you've got to have your little chocolate cup of ginja and maybe a hot cocoa, and you've got to see all of the little market stalls where people are selling their artisan goods. And sometimes it's just like hand embroidery towels and you know, little crochet items. And, you know, sometimes it's more than you've got to have like the low, um, the different types of cakes and breads and all of these other things. Um, but I mean, there's nothing better than a market bifana. You go to an open market, those bifana sandwiches, they're very good. And I can hardly wait to go to Spain and see what the Spanish market there is like. And then we'll and they have street upon street upon street of foods. So I can hardly wait for this. Like Spanish food makes me happy too.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Like we talked about in our last episode, we'll have to record that and actually post some things for people about that.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

You know, mold wine. Very good, very good things, and tons of bread and cheese. And anytime, I mean, I could live on bread and cheese alone. That's that's all I really want to eat, honestly. You give me that, I'm a happy girl. So, but we're also at the time we're um you know getting gifts ready and and getting everything ready for you know gift exchanges and parties and things. Um, we're gonna go to friends' house for a Christmas dinner, decorate cookies, all of those fun things. But yeah, I'm in my um my Christmas baking mode. I've got to get everybody's Christmas baked goods to them next week.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

I was gonna say you're gonna expose your students to uh some American foods, aren't you?

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Yeah, they love it. Um I bring in things all the time. So I made pumpkin cinnamon rolls and I brought them chocolate chip cookies, and we did that for Thanksgiving. They had a little pumpkin thing because we did a pumpkin chart. I did that last year, and that was just too weird for them. It was too much. Um, but yeah, so I'm baking all of the traditional Christmas cookies that we would make, the peanut butter blossoms and the chocolate chip cookies, and I'm gonna do some oatmeal cream pies and you know, gingerbread, and sugar cookies and fudge. We've got this stuff for FUD and put it in boxes for them. So I think it's gonna be great. I can hardly wait. Um, and then give them some recipes of things that they can do at home too, because they are in love with chocolate chip cookies. In love with cinnamon rolls. Those are things that they love. Oh it's gonna be great. Plus, you know, um, for those who know us well, know that this time of year I need to get myself in the holiday spirit. So I generally would be stress baking at home before anyway, right? And I'd make pans and pans and pans of cinnamon rolls. I still make cinnamon rolls, but I guess it's not the same kind of stress baking. Um, but yeah, so everybody's ready for their cinnamon rolls to take home and have for breakfast. I think it's been great.

unknown 6:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Well, and I'm excited because the one of the continent stores now has a wide range of whiskey. That's true. They have last beyond the holidays. They actually have some good variety. And so now I've got this idea for a show, a podcast called Jason on the Rocks. Okay. I remember years ago with one Iowa, I'd do that wine and taxes where I'd go after hours and people would drink wine and I would present on taxes. Coming up with something like that, like whiskey tasting, or we could do wine or Portuguese beer, whatever, have a little tasting session, and then maybe a tax lesson, just like five minutes or something. For you. People listening to the podcast, they can um they can drink their favorite beverage as they're learning about a tax topic. And I'll just talk about taxes and also the whiskey that I'm sipping that that particular episode.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

Well, and I think that when we were going to Las Vegas for the fall conference in November, stopping in London, that really kind of lit that kind of fire back in you to get back more into whiskey because we we had like two bottles of whiskey, not very many, but you're two two of your favorites. Um you found your people. I mean, that was a lot of fun. And so I I know that there are certain whiskeys that I would like to get you. Um, so you know, Christmas holiday is coming up that we can help support the Jason on the rocks idea. So you'll have something to sip. I myself am not strong enough for a whiskey. I'm not built that way, but I bet you can uh find a good friend to help you with that.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

But you don't like you don't have to drink a whole shot of whiskey. You just you pour a tiny little measured, really. We don't have good whiskey glasses here though. And so my hope is that maybe there'll be a sponsor that'll come along. The problem is, yeah, I I do these podcasts and it's like five followers on YouTube or whatever. So it's like, well, no one's gonna sponsor that. I'll probably get two listeners or whatever, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

I mean, big babe, you never know. Put it out there. I think Jason on the rocks and taxes, it could be very interesting. But more than that, we've also decided that 2026 is gonna be the year of more just doing the things that we say we want to do, you know, instead of just being like, oh, wouldn't that be nice? So we we've started doing more of that, and now it's more, like even more. So October 2026, we've got to go to the international whiskey show in London. I mean, it has to happen.

unknown 9:05

That's true.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

Gotta just make it work. It's gonna be one of those things that we've got to do. And we already know in 2026. We also need to go to Barcelona for Gaudi's 100th birthday anniversary. We need to go and spend time there. They'll finish the Sagrada Familia. It'll be a great kind of junt. Take a flight from Porto to Barcelona, it's not that bad. So I think that we've got a few things in the works. I know that the the kids have some ideas too. Um, Jack's thought about, you know, maybe going to college in Ireland or in the Netherlands. So I know that they'd like to go there as well. And then, of course, I mean, Tyler, he's like, we have to go and visit where like they make Legos. He's all about Legos. We need we need to go for Legos. Oh, he wants to go to Denmark for Legos.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

I know. So I don't think we can do all that in 2026, but I think we can do several things. That's a lot.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

We need in June, usually the whiskey cask investment place has that polo tournament that we've talked about going to in London, and we need to do that. It's actually, they told me it was free. We just have to pay to get there.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

So I think we do it. We had we had a lot of fun. We had a great time, and you know, we we were exhausted in our travel days. We've learned that yes, it's nice to like have the breaks and travel, but we had a good time. We didn't really we didn't adventure out, we were too tired, but yeah, I think that that's gonna be great. I think it'll be a lot of fun. So yeah, we've got a long list of places that we'd like to see. I know that would be a lot. I don't know if June will would be able to happen because of national exams and internships and those things, but we will definitely be making it there. So I can hardly wait. And if you anybody is around, you know, coming to Portugal, come and see us. Right? We always love having people come and visit.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

We'll be here.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

We will, and we know plenty of the inside scoop, good places to go, you know, explore a little bit more. Why not? So I think it's just this is just a great time of year. And um the the idea of like what are the things we want to do in 2026 and and what is that piece of dreaming things, like now's the time for us to start doing that. And I love that we're having these conversations, but everyone around me is also having these same kinds of conversations. Um, and I think that that's fantastic. And you know, I'd also love the uh the posts that you start to see now of ways to maximize your time off. So instead of having like your 30 or 35 to 40 days of vacation, how to make that like 56 or 60 based on the Portuguese national holiday calendar and all of these things. So I'm like, yes, let's let's do more jaunting. Um let's take advantage. Yeah. All right, so Jason on the rocks, whiskey. We'll see how things go, guys. Give him your ideas.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

All right. Well, that'll do it for this episode of As the Dinoson's Turn. Join us again next time.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

You've been listening to As the Dinoson's Turn, a podcast presented by Dinoson Media Ventures. Don't forget to like and subscribe, and catch us again next time for another episode.