Betelgeuse will show up tonight, and unlike the similarly-named poltergeist, you don't even have to say its name three times.
AstroBob will have some helpful tips for red-giant-spotting on his blog, and you can read about scientists' concerns that "Betelgeuse is acting strange" here.
The Milky Way is bent out of shape, apparently: you can read an article about it here and take a look at the actual findings here.
Meanwhile, the first meteor shower of the year is conveniently timed for 3:00am Saturday morning, January 4.
You can read more about the quantrantid meteor shower here, and learn about "demoted constellation" Quandrans Muralis here.