Leap Year Bonus Day Ideas To Inspire Your Gift of An Extra Day

As if a genie appears out of the lamp offering you a magical gift of a day ~ an entire extra day 🌞 ~ this year we are blessed with a Leap Year bonus. 

There’s no question we greatly value time.  Time Idioms abound: “Better Late Than Never;” “Time and Tide Wait for None;” “Time is Money;” or “Have the Time of your Life.” 

What will you do with your extra time?  Here are a few suggestions for your consideration to Celebrate the gift of an extra day:

Why not Take the Leap? 

Go ahead ~ do something you’ve dreamed about doing. But perhaps you didn’t have the time.  Consider getting a massage, a tattoo, take a genuine leap with a skydive; or an ocean plunge. 

Of course you can play Leap Frog.

But what about a childhood fun sidewalk game of Hopscotch?  

Go Old School ~ Some Leap Year traditions revolve around love and romance. It’s said that not unlike Sadie Hawkins, St. Bridget sweet-talked St. Patrick into allowing women to propose to men.  

Well, we’re way past that nugget.  

Nevertheless, in that spirit, you can watch the RomCom film, “Leap Year” starring Amy Adams. Set in Dublin, Ireland, it’s a sweet movie about what she’ll do to get a marriage proposal by proposing to her boyfriend, played by Matthew Goode. 

Perhaps it’s how crazy the world is these days, but my new favorite film genre is romantic comedies 🥰

But surely, a good way to spend your time any day ~ but particularly on your bonus day, is to show your Love: whether it’s canoodling with a partner, holding hands with a parent, or spending some quality time with your children reading or in the kitchen cooking or baking.  

Fun Fact: Babies born on Leap Day are called “Leaplings” or “Leapers!”  Cute. 

Sprinkle your love to your community: shop local; visit a nearby museum or botanical garden; attend a play or the ballet at a local theater or listen to live music at a nearby restaurant or winery or the local art gallery. 

Curling up with a good book is my idea of heaven… 

Volunteer: at your nearby “soup kitchen” serving meals or cleaning up the park or the beach.  Or at an animal rescue. You can do an online search for opportunities in your area that don’t require training time.  Or perhaps the time volunteering will inspire you to in fact, join the organization for a full commitment.  It’s a wonderful way to meet others and build a network of community strength. 

Host a party!  Consider a brunch or tea for a lovely, doable gathering of friends or family.

Serve some leap-like foods, including rabbit or frogs legs. 

Image: Cartoon Stock

Or leapin’ crickets. Yes, folks, we used to eat all these hopping food treats. Many cultures and areas of our land still do. They are delicious ~ and in the case of crickets ~ they offer a protein-packed menu item.  

If expanding your palate this way leaves you hopping spooked 🙂~ consider serving Carrot Cake. One of my most favorite dessert treats. 

A couple of years ago, I baked these sweet carrot cupcakes and decorated with candied carrot curls. 

Since then, I’ve hosted Lisa Rutland as a special guest for my Ladies Who Lunch Conversations videocast (Facebook and YouTube).

Now, I swear by and totally recommend all of Lisa’s delicious, sophisticated, yet easy to make recipes.

And it’s just so perfect that her Carrot Cake recipe adaptation is from the Frog Commissary Restaurant.  Kismet! So perfect for a special Leap Year dessert.

You can’t go wrong mixing up a Carrot Cocktail for the Leap Year Festivities.

Here’s a delicious recipe I created recently: 

Carota Love Potion

Ingredients:

2 oz Appleton Estate Rum from Jamaica

1.5 oz Amaro ~ I used Eda Rhyne Distilling Co 

1.5 oz Suze 

1.5 oz orange liqueur (Solara)

1.5 oz Carrot Simple Syrup

.75 oz Fresh-squeezed lemon juice 

Dash of Orange Bitters (Fee Brothers or Modern Bar Cart)

Method:

Put all the ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake, shake, shake.

Pour into a coupe glass, rimmed dipped in maple syrup or agave and the carrot sugar.

Garnish:

Sugared carrot curls draped languidly on the rim. You can add carrot greens or basil. Also a dash of cardamom. 

This drink works great sans alcohol too, as a great-tasting Mocktail. 

Get a Leap on Spring ~  If you’re very ambitious you could start in your closets with some spring cleaning. Or the attic or kitchen drawers or even your spice rack.

This could also mean planning your garden, weather permitting, getting into the garden to cut back the ornamental grasses and asparagus tops from last season ~ as Bill did today given the warm temps; picking up and stacking the twigs and branches from “Nature’s Pruning.”

Walk your yard and garden rooms to take inventory. Start a garden journal. The Walk is an investment in your health ~ as a friend’s doctor told her ~ and seeing and assessing what your garden needs is practical and dreamy at the same time, imagining the garden design possibilities for the year ahead.  

Do this with a friend or partner or a child and you’ll reap double the benefits.

Make the Memories ~ Schedule a Personal Photo Shoot ~ with your family, your pet(s); with friends to remember this special Leap Year Day. 

Or maybe you create a fantasy composition of a favorite film or literary character.  Have some fun and make the memory you’ll cherish in the future ~ until next Leap Year in 2028.

I sincerely hope you enjoy this bonus gift of time and spend it doing something glamorous, something memorable, something fun, and good. 

Or a little bit of all those, as you leap for joy counting at all your blessings.