Christmas Is Almost Here!

The only thing more depressing than Labor Day weekend is contemplating the holiday season in August:

Yes, Virginia. A sweaty army of New Yorkers is already toiling to deck the halls.

Retailers are ordering their fixin’s and trimmin’s. Macy’s is racing to complete a construction miracle on 34th Street, preparing for the onslaught of 300,000 visitors to Santaland on its eighth floor in Herald Square. Workers are making way for new displays at North Pole Town Square, including the animated teddy-bear marching band. The one with eight teddy-bear musicians.

Currently, Santa is helper-challenged. “We’re sending out letters to elves who’ve worked in the past,” said Bob Rutan, the director of event operations. He needs 140.

Calling David Sedaris. Anyway, Christmas marches on elsewhere:

Paul Olszewski, whose title is director of windows, is coordinating the efforts of 65 workers to fill said space at Macy’s with “something no one has ever seen before in the city,” he pronounced ominously. Not space aliens or even Parson Brown, he insisted, but that’s about all he would reveal, save that the team started working to fill the 40 windows in February, “and we feel as if we’re behind schedule.”

In the heavy air, there’s a feeling of Christmas at Rockefeller Center, bracing itself for the invasion of 400,000 to 500,000 visitors per day from late November through the first week of January. “It’s fourth quarter here with six minutes left in the game,” said Thomas A. Madden Jr., a managing director of Tishman Speyer Properties, owners of Rockefeller Center.

About the Christmas tree hunt (by helicopter, throughout the metropolitan region): “We’re down to several finalists,” said Mr. Madden, who refused to say how many, or where. After all, the felling of the lucky pine cannot be breathlessly announced until November.

Rockefeller Center Zamboni tuneup? Check. Gourmet magazine Christmas cookie photo shoot? Check. Satin-lined, zipper-front Santa Claus suits? Check! And on and on and on it goes until the dreary winter months fall upon us . . .