Things to Do in Santa Clara

A charter member of the MLS, the San Jose Earthquakes played their first four seasons as the Clash before claiming the MLS Cup in 2001 and 2003. Though the team moved to Houston in '05, the franchise was reinstated in '08, bringing professional soccer back to the Bay Area. Buck Shaw Stadium serves as the team's current home, though a new stadium will shoot skyward in 2014, complete with luxury suites for fans and exhausted referees alike.

Today’s Groupon flexes, stretches, and twists your soul and body into a purity pretzel: for $25, you get five yoga classes at NuLife Yoga (a $50 value). It's perfect for de-stressing from holiday stresses that include taking difficult family pictures around the holiday tree, singing already-challenging holiday songs in more challenging keys, and building a home computer so you can send out holiday e-cards.There once was a flexible gal, Whose yogic skills never did fail, When forgetting her keys, She just pulled in her knees, And squeezed through the slot for the mail.

LeMans Karting helps visitors satisfy their needs for speed, safety, and social interaction. Nine-horsepower SODI RX 7 karts take drivers soaring at speeds of up to 42 mph across indoor and outdoor tracks as they compete for the fastest finish. High-grip track surfaces help drivers reach top speeds, and high-visibility lighting and flagmen keep everyone safe as they round corners and pass other drivers on the wide course. On certain days, the staff connects the indoor and outdoor track into a single, giant mega track that hosts extended races when it’s not busy fighting Godzilla.

LeMans Karting also offers endurance racing for drivers who want to sharpen their driving skills or land a job as Vin Diesel’s chauffer. The center also offers private parties for birthdays and bachelor parties and can help plan charity or corporate events.

City Lights is an innovative, intimate (100 seats), nonprofit theater company that produces six main-stage plays per year. Each play runs for a five-week period with four shows per week. Coming up in the current season is a production of Billy Aronson's First Day of School, a farcical look at the behavior of suburbanites in autumn (September 23–October 24); an irreverent, interactive, and totally historically accurate play titled Abraham Lincoln's Big, Gay Dance Party (November 24–December 19); and the horseplay of the drama Equus (March 17–April 17), the winner of the 1975 Tony for Best Play and a favorite of horse whisperers and hoarse whisperers everywhere.

Fighting off the horrific low 40s of a San Jose winter is best achieved when your body is a fitness temple and your mind is a fitness fireplace. Today’s Groupon preps your body with five yoga, Pilates, or gyrokinesis classes from Reformation Yoga & Pilates Studio. Astounding flexibility, core toughness, tough coreness, and thorough balance are all musts for dodging and evading winter’s minor gusts of chill and major gusts of holiday indulgence.Troublemaking Teen: By adding a cup of virtue, a spoonful of tough love, and one experimental serum, you can reform a troublemaking teen into a science-werewolf, a living vampire, or a sentient block of wood that will never ride a motorcycle too loudly again.

The locations that comprise Paintball Tickets challenge hue-happy gamers to a range of combative revelry fought with air-powered paintbrushes. During games, referees maintain a fun and lighthearted wartime experience while competitors engage in capture-the-flag style strategy. As players navigate the terrain on a quest to invade the other team's territory and avoid epidemics of trenchfoot, they covertly scope opponents and peg them with bright-colored pellets to dull their chance at victory.