Radio City High-Kicks into the Christmas Season

"GEORGE, A camel, stepped on the foot of a Rockette; six sheep came off the elevator as three kings bearing gifts got on. ... Human Christmas trees bumped into eight maids-a-milking at the water cooler and an elf came down with the flu!"

This is Bill Geist of The New York Times reporting backstage at Radio City Music Hall during the famous Christmas show.

PEOPLE OFTEN ask me what I think is the actual geographical center of New York City? Sometimes I am tempted to say Shubert Alley and the theater district and other times, I say it could be 57th Street and Fifth Avenue.

But for me, the center of New York at Christmastime is Radio City Music Hall and the annual Yule extravaganza featuring the incredible Rockettes. This is such a delicious treat that I am amazed at how many jaded New Yorkers just let themselves grow old too fast and stop going to see it. They don't keep the childlike joy that comes with once again experiencing this vital, amazing and constantly updated offering in America's biggest, most beautiful theater.

The powers that be keep on improving this phenomenon. Now Santa appears in 3-D for his swooping opening visit from the North Pole right onto the big stage. Every year the Rockettes give us the old favorites (the dancing reindeer, the toy soldiers being shot down) and at least one or two new numbers to sizzle us in our seats.

I watch it each time with a new gang of children, young and old, and take them afterward a few blocks up what I still refer to as "Sixth Avenue" to the famous Circo restaurant on West 55th where the maitre de, Bruno, has those baby pizzas waiting and a big Italian feast.

I BELIEVE even most atheists, agnostics and others who are not of the Christian faith can gain a lot from enjoying the Yuletide and experiencing the religious denouement in Radio City as the shepherds come to worship the babe in the manger and camels, sheep and Magi merge onstage. (This is, at the least a famous historical mythic event. It can mean whatever you want it to mean.)

Radio City Music Hall, where the Christmas show began only a few days ago, continuing until Dec. 30, is my own personal, private, and very much loved real re-entry to the season. Radio City presents a better show than you can usually see on Broadway. If it doesn't get you in the mood for Santa, nothing will!

BUY online at www.radiocitychristmas.com or www.ticketmaster.com, or buy in person at the Radio City box office or Madison Square Garden box office. Call the Christmas hotline at 866-858 0007. Groups can call 212-465-6080 or visit www.christmasspectaculargroups.com. There are special discounts for groups over 25.

THIS YEAR I recommend the Christmas Spectacular Pop-up Book where in 32 hardcover pages we get to see the Rockettes doing their stuff. This is a $35 gift of gifts for those who love this show.

Radio City offers at least seven other coffee table works honoring their traditions, plus ornaments, collectibles, snow globes, CDs, DVDs, cups, T-shirts and all the rest. Go online to www.radiocity.shop.musictoday.com or to Radio City itself.

My favorites? The toy soldier Christmas ornaments.

TONIGHT! Jazz at Lincoln Center's black-tie musical gala is a celebration of the music of Frank Sinatra; songs most associated with the late great Francis Albert. Taking over the stage at Rose Hall, will be Wynton Marsalis, joined by special guests Michael Feinstein and the eternally luscious Diahann Carroll, she of Broadway, movies and TV fame.

I sat with Miss Carroll last week and I'll tell more, anon, of what this earthy diva had to say, but in regard to tonight's, event, Diahann says that it is time for Sinatra to be "revived" again: "I don't think, even now, people appreciate and understand him as the great artist he was. Tina and Nancy, his daughters, keep the flame, but he deserves something huge -- like the new Beatles box set!"

I will tell one thing Diahann and I laughed about. Ruminating on her career, she said, "I've done a lot in my life, I've worked everywhere, with the greatest people. But to this day, when somebody walks up to me, I can almost predict their first words: 'Oh, I just loved it when you slapped Joan Collins on 'Dynasty!'"

"Do you mind?" I asked.

"Why, not at all, darling. That was so much fun."

Uhhh ... don't get the wrong idea. Diahann and Joan are old friends. They even live in the same apartment complex in Hollywood. And so does Cher. Oh, to be a bugle bead on the walls of those hallways