The Holiday Gift Gallery at Monmouth Museum returns on Tuesday — and continues through January 11 — for the benefit of late-blooming gifters.

For something that seems to start as early as Back to School Days, the holiday shopping season never seems to have enough hours and days loaded up on the back end. It’s not so much that “we need a little Christmas, right this very moment” — it’s that we need a lot more moments, right now and on into the new calendar year.

It’s for straggling souls that one of the Red Bank area’s unsung treasures, the Monmouth Museum, maintains an annual Holiday Gift Gallery that offers up eleventh-hour shopportunities beginning Tuesday.

Hosted inside the museum’s Nilson Gallery space, the “festive holiday showcase” spotlights some truly unique gift ideas by area-based creatives; a selection that includes distinctive jewelry, books, artwork, ceramics and more. It runs concurrent with a newly improved Model Train Display, a train-themed holiday tree, and an All Aboard! display of photographic prints celebrating the role of the railroad in the American landscape.

Museum hours for Tuesday, December 23 are 10 am to 5 pm; the museum is closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (as well as New Year’s Day and every Monday). The gift gallery continues during regular museum hours through Sunday, January 11.

Admission during regular museum hours (Tuesday-Thursday 10 am-5 pm; Friday 10 am-9 pm; Saturday 10 am-5 pm; Sunday 12-5 pm) is $7.00 per person; free with valid student or staff ID from Brookdale Community College — and keep it tuned to redbankgreen for details on a new round of events in 2015, including the 36th annual Juried Art Exhibition, opening January 17.