If you aren’t going to eat it, regift it!
Photo courtesy SXC.

Food products should be used within 12 months, or they begin to deteriorate—some items like cookies and candy, much sooner.

Many products have expiration dates, but if you don’t like the food to begin with, the dates don’t really matter. It’s better to share the item now, with people who will enjoy it.

Bring the food to your favorite cook, to your co-workers, be a friendly neighbor or donate it to a volunteer enterprise.

Or, call a Christmas White Elephant Party. Invite friends to bring a gift they’d like to trade. Let everyone draw a number from a hat for “picking order,” and choose their new gifts in from other people’s “white elephants.”

• Then, find reviews in our more than 70 categories of specialty foods, and pick something you’d rather have, and treat yourself.

• Take an hour this weekend to go through your pantry and fridge and throw out expired items. Look at dates that are at or near expiration, and put them on the counter to decide to eat them or give them away while they’re still good.