could we please have same option as in eb2 to accept gifts etc in one area that can be checked off without having to go to the game after gift accept as in BW? I have 51 gifts now- takes forever to get them and I don't want to delete them.

All the ones that are daily lottery and giants quests you should do like Monica says, that's the only way to do those.
Any others that might appear in your notifications you can delete, or do, but those can be done by you within the game by talking to Sasha. These would be help with friend gates, help with house extensions, and perhaps some others.
Voting for friends houses you can safely delete from your notifications area.
Once you are down to no notifications, then just keep up to date once a day even and you wll not be inundated with so many like 51.