I didn’t unpack all my Christmas stuff this year since our holiday plans were uncertain. I just pulled out tubs closest to the front of shelves. I figured no lights, no fuss, no bother.

I did hang heirloom ornaments on a bare steel tree with bendable branches on the coffee table and I set up a collection of tabletop trees and draped an old-fashioned double strand of tinsel on the fireplace mantle. Then I propped up the Christmas stockings on the hearth.

I put my blown glass Santa tree topper in a red square vase with a spray of red berries, partridge feathers and bare twigs. I put my old-fashioned paper mache Santa Claus face on a stand on the piano along with a poinsettia wrapped bowl filled with brown wicker balls.

I positioned my 3 foot wood carved Santa by the console and put my snowball ornaments in martini glasses in the china closet and staggered my peppermint candles on the buffet.

Sig said, “Where are the monkeys — that always hold the stockings on the mantle? Where are the lights? Where is the tree?”

That’s when I realized that Christmas is really, really complicated.