PUBLIC LIVES
Details, Details, Down to the Tiniest Elf
By LYNDA RICHARDSON

Published: December 9, 2004

IT is left to Bob Rutan to make sure the elves in Macy’s Santaland do
not become bitter or resentful, standing on their feet all day and
ushering visitors through a maze of holiday displays, a permanent
smile plastered on their perky faces.

The task requires a certain tough-mindedness, as well as a measure of
bonhomie. This is a job for Mr. Rutan, the architect behind Santaland
and a onetime “straw boss” for Santa at Macy’s who was charged with
carrying the big guy’s water, tidying his magical workshop and
providing a clean suit whenever a baby spit up on him.

On a recent morning, Mr. Rutan, Macy’s director of event operations,
is leafing through “The Elfin Manual” in his cluttered 16th-floor
office at the flagship store on West 34th Street. The training guide
is handed out to 149 seasonal employees who don elf tunics, knickers
and pointed caps topped with pompoms. Mr. Rutan oversees their
training and assigns them to 18 positions in Santaland, from crowd
control and photos to directing the way to Santa.

Mr. Rutan flips through the pages, reciting a few dos and don’ts – how
elves must clock in and out, how to handle a frightened child and how
they must keep up their energy level.

He casts an eye at his visitor, ruminating on his daily patrols of
Santaland. “Sometimes I need to call out and say: ‘Let’s get Twinkles
off this position. She needs a break. She’s been here for four
hours. She’s starting to lose it.’ ” He says this with a straight
face, which must be what happens when one spends a lot of time around
elves and the North Pole’s most famous resident.Tall and lanky,
Mr. Rutan, 45, has shaggy, shoulder-length brown hair and wears a navy
suit and black cowboy boots. He is in charge of the daily operations
and logistics of Macy’s annual grand events – Santaland, the
Thanksgiving Day parade, the Fourth of July fireworks and its flower
show. He is also the department store’s archivist and historian. His
dramatic bass voice can be heard at the starting line of the
Thanksgiving Day parade, announcing floats, bands, balloons and Santa.

Mr. Rutan began at Macy’s in 1991 as a temporary employee, padding his
income as a struggling – well, starving – actor. He was promoted to
Santaland hiring manager in 1998 and was named to his current position
a year later.

On this day, he is animated as he talks about the appeal of Santaland,
which started in 1975 and has become an elaborate affair that attracts
a quarter-million visitors during the Christmas season. “The great
thing for me is that I will never get tired of a kid coming in and
seeing their face light up when they see Santa,” he says.

He is eager to take a trip to Santaland, on the eighth floor. Visitors
are lined up with strollers, sharp elbows and cameras at the
ready. Mr. Rutan makes his way through the garland-strung maze adorned
with candy canes, Nutcracker soldiers and snow crystals. He exudes a
John Wayne persona with his cowboy boots and swaggering strut. He left
his black Stetson in his office.

He began wearing western dress when he studied theater at Glassboro
State College in New Jersey, now Rowan University. But he has loved
western films since he was a boy in Lakewood, N.J., where his single
mother was the vice president of a company that made frames for doors
and windows. He has about 600 movies and television episodes of
old-time westerns like “High Noon,” “Have Gun Will Travel” and
“Maverick” in the apartment in Douglaston, Queens, that he shares with
his third wife, Elina Kazan, Macy’s director of publicity.

Mr. Rutan’s job at Macy’s is to promote an annual rite of good cheer,
something far removed from his acting roles. He played monsters,
murderers, even Dracula. In his office, there is a scowling photo of
him when he was cast as the treacherous Antonio in a production of
“The Tempest.” He looks like a cross between Charles Manson and
Rasputin. The photograph frightens his 10-year-old daughter, Sabrina,
who feels blessed that her father now works for Santa.

Back in Santaland, Mr. Rutan pauses near a three-level train set. He
calls a manager to report that the trains are not moving. He is not
pleased. He moves through bright holiday scenes that turn icy-blue and
white before opening into a cluster of Christmas trees at Santa’s
Village.

Mr. Rutan turns, with a boyish grin. “This area that has elves, snow
globes, the sleigh – it’s oversaturated with Christmas, and that gets
you ready for the next step, the man himself.”

ONE cannot resist asking about a famous essay, “The Santaland
Diaries,” by the humorist David Sedaris, who in the early 1990’s
toiled as an elf at Macy’s and wrote a thorny account about his
exercise in humiliation. Mr. Rutan says the essay was
accurate. Santaland was too commercial then, he says. Visitors were
hustled through, and some elves, and even Santa, were disgruntled
about their lot in life.

“We’ve had an amazing turnaround,” he says. “We really wanted to bring
back the true feeling of Christmas.”

In the Rutan era, he says, the emphasis is on team spirit. “I wanted
crews that enjoyed what they were doing,” he says. “There can be no
egos. The little elf is as important as I am in this operation.”

>From The New York Times

*Bob Rutan is of half Armenian, half Scottish descent. His wife Elina
Kazan is Armenian from both parents.