Commentary: It is getting pretty late to put away holiday spangle

Well, here it is February, and I already have all the Christmas decorations put back into the garage. Now for someone who is not afraid of climbing ladders to put them on the storage shelf.

How many of you still have Christmas presents that you bought “just in case”?

I have a half-case of wine meant as hostess gifts (clearly, I am not on enough guest lists). A gift basket of the ingredients for Moscow Mules (that might have been funny in December). Six double-decks of playing cards because I can’t resist buying them and then can’t part with them. A DVD collection of old movies; a DVD collection of Shakespeare plays; and a videotape collection of Broadway musicals. Add to those the assorted Christmas music CDs, adult coloring books and other one-size-fits-nobody gifts.

It’s the same with greeting cards. I buy them when I see them, and then when it’s someone’s birthday, anniversary, get-well time, whatever, none of the selections suits the next-up recipient.

But you can’t always find a card that says what you want when you need it, and three stores later you just buy one so you can go home.

Except for my nieces. I have seven nieces I buy cards for, and believe me, you have to buy niece cards when you see them. Same with grandkids and great-grands.

In November, I told the immediate family that I wasn’t sending any more cards or checks, not even at Christmas.

I got only two responses to that email, and they were on the order of “What took you so long?”

I had believed that offspring think grandmothers have nothing more important to do than shower them with love they can cash, but the outstanding checks in my account made me realize that in the overall scheme, the individual amounts I gave were not life-changing.

Instead of many small checks, I could send fewer but significant checks to my fave rescue missions, where a chunk of money would do great good.

But I began to feel Grinchy. So I bought Christmas gifts for my family, starting with those five lovely hand-beaded bags for some of my granddaughters. I ordered delightful Liberty jigsaw puzzles for families, true collectors’ items — wooden puzzles that feature little figures among the pieces. I bought useful robot vacuums for my single kids. And other stuff.

Family members of all ages really loved those puzzles. They went over bigger than the checks I’d been sending for all these years. In fact, everybody liked their presents!

Gifts selected for specific people, like greeting cards selected for specific people, mean more to the recipients than the checks do. And it’s way more fun for me to select gifts!

I even got lovely thank you notes from the charities, reminding me that the contributions are tax deductible. (As checks to my kids and grand kids were not.)

I think I’ll bundle up most of those “all-purpose” gifts and contribute them to the Assistance League Thrift Shop.

Not the wine, of course.

Nor the playing cards.

LIZ SWIERTZ NEWMAN lives in Corona del Mar.