Top 10 Things To Do On New Year's Day

Looking for things to do on New Year’s Day? We often spend all of our time planning for New Year’s Eve, but the first day of the new year is just as important. Here are 10 fun and practical New Year’s Day 2009 activities.

New Year’s Day is a big day for College Football starting at 11AM with South Carolina vs. Iowa in Tampa, Florida. At 1PM, you can watch Georgia vs, Michigan State in Orlando, Florida or Nebraska vs. Clemson in Jacksonville, Florida. The highly anticipated Rose Bowl with Penn State vs. USC in Pasadena, CA, starts at 4:30 on ABC. And, you can wrap up your football watching New Year’s Day with the Fedex Orange game, Cincinnati vs. Virginia Tech, playing in Miami’s Dolphin Stadium, starting at 8:30 PM on Fox.

Visit ESPN.com for a complete college bowl schedule.

Yoga is well known for it’s healing, cleansing and renewal effects. What better day for cleansing and renewal than on New Year’s Day! Hot Yoga classes are taught in a heated room, with temperatures ranging from 90 degrees to 104 degrees. The heat promotes muscle flexibility and sweating, which helps get the toxins (ex. bottle of champagne on New Year’s Eve) out of your body. If you are new to yoga, almost any class can be adjusted for students at all levels, from beginner to expert

The beginning of a new year is a fresh start and a great time to think about what you want to accomplish in your personal and professional life in 2009. The most common New Year’s resolutions include to: lose weight, exercise more, eat better, stop smoking, spend more time with family and friends, volunteer and save money and/or get out of debt.

Invite your friends and family over for a New Year’s Day brunch. Keep it relaxed by using an “open house” format where attendees can come and go as they please. More and more people are staying at home on New Year’s Eve, and would look forward to an event the next day.

The Entertaining section of About.com has a great article on how to host a New Year’s Day brunch which can be accessed by clicking here.

Have you ever prepared a salad, added the dressing, taken a bite and then stopped chewing because you could taste that something was wrong? Then, when you looked at the salad dressing bottle your read that the “best used by” date was from the prior year? We tend to be so busy in our day to day lives, we don't take the time to remove the outdated items.

On New Year’s Day, set aside an hour and do some expiration date cleaning. Take a look in your refrigerator door and toss everything with expired dates. Look in your freezer and toss the items that are no longer recognizable and are likely infused with freezer burn. Also, look inside your medicine cabinet and toss the old medications and ointments as well as older make-up items, like mascara, that should be replaced on a regular basis.

You can never have too many friends and New Year’s Day is the perfect day of the year to reach out to those who you haven’t spoken to in awhile. We all get so busy, especially around the holidays.

Seeing a newly released movie with family and friends is a New Year’s Day tradition for many. This New Year’s Day you have a choice of many, highly anticipated new releases. These movies include:

• "Marley & Me", the PG rated comedy with Jennifer Aniston, Owen Wilson and Alan Arkin, about how a family learns important life lessons from their cute, but high maintenance puppy dog,

• The futuristic cop thriller, "The Spirit", rated PG 13 with Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, and Scarlett Johannson. Based on Will Eisner's critically acclaimed graphic novel.

• "Bedtime Stories", the PG rated comedy with Adam Sandler and Keri Russell about a local handyman who finds that the bed time stories he tells his nephew and niece, start to become true in the real world.

• "Doubt", rated PG 13, with Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams about a principal (Streep) in a catholic High School who accuses a popular priest (Hoffman) of pedophilia. This takes place in the Bronx in the 60’s.

There are some home owners who keep their Christmas lights and holiday decorations out for all to see far past New Year’s Day. Most don’t, so what better day for de-holidaydizing (yes, it’s a word) than January 1, 2009? Gather up the red & green, pack up the blue and white, take down the Christmas tree and roll-up the holiday lights.

Many retailers need to move excess holiday inventory and hold fantastic “After Christmas” sales.

Get up as late as possible, lounge around in comfy sweatpants and your favorite tee shirt, drink mimosas, down an entire bag of potato chips or plate of home made cookies, order in Chinese Food or Pizza, watch a Law and Order marathon, cuddle etc. etc. etc.

Copyright © 2008, M. Reynolds, All Rights Reserved