Thursday, January 05, 2012

Regifting

This past Christmas, a close relative of mine gave me a holiday package. You know the kind that contain summer sausages and cheese? This one had two different kinds of summer sausage, a package of crackers, some spreadable mustard and spreadable cheese. I was delighted! I thought this is the perfect gift! My husband and I will be able to enjoy this on New Year’s eve.

I took the package home and stored it as mentioned on the directions. I actually went ahead and put it in the refrigerator.

On New Year’s Eve, I made a beautiful snack tray for my family. It is our usual New Year’s Eve tradition to enjoy snacks as we listen to music, watch comedy shows, sip champagne and wait for the ball to drop at midnight. The champagne was chilled. The candles were lit. I had sliced some lovely fruit and decided to add the summer sausage, cheese and crackers to our snack tray. I went into the refrigerator to retrieve the snack package and went to open one of the flavored summer sausages. Much to my horror, the sausage was molded! There were large areas of mold on both packages of sausage.

I searched the package to see if I could find the expiration date. Much to my amazement, the package indicated that it had expired in February 2010! The package was almost 2 years old! Disgusted, I threw the entire package into the trash can.

I called my relative and thanked him for the snack gift and I also informed him that the expiration date was almost 2 years ago. I wanted to make sure that he had not purchased an expired package. He was embarrassed and admitted that this was a re-gift. (duh!) He said that someone had given the package to him and that he had passed it on to me because he did not eat that kind of meat. Hmmmm… As I always say, there ain’t nothing like family!

Well, lesson learned here: If you are going to re-gift, make sure that your gift is appropriate and within the expiration date.

Happy New Year, y'all!

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