The Radio City Christmas Spectacular is the kind of show where a puppy can — and does — get a big “aaaaw!” from the audience when it's pulled out of a gift box at the end of a huge production number.

        Returning for a second holiday season stint (through Dec. 31) at the Aronoff's Procter and Gamble Hall, Radio City knows exactly what to do with kids and puppies and Santa and teddy bears.

        And of course, it has a not-so-secret weapon — those precision marching and kicking Rockettes, although there are only a not-so-spectacular 18 of them.

        There are no changes from last year, and why argue with the old adage, if it's not broke, why fix it?

        If I'm sounding like a Scrooge, it's because a top ticket of $55 does seem a hefty price to pay for a show that's all formula and no feeling, and nowhere near as elaborate as the version at home base, which I remember from my own childhood as having about twice as many high-kicking gals and a Santa who looked like the real thing.

        Who can explain the mystery of the Rockettes? They just are. They maneuver tinsel-covered hoops, we applaud. They kick, we cheer. They exit a tiny taxi (a trick they learned from circus clowns) in bright red, fur-trimmed Santa babe outfits, and the audience is delighted to be delighted.

        Some of the numbers have been around forever, and they still work like the day the curtain went up for the first time.

        The Rockettes have been doing the Parade of the Wooden Soldiers for longer than most of us have been alive, and a lot of people are probably going to like Radio City's teddy bear mini-version of The Nutcracker more than the spiffy new full-length one being unveiled by Cincinnati Ballet.

        A troop of colorfully costumed, cheerful singers (about on the level you'd find at a good theme park show) perform a battery of holiday hit tunes to orchestrations that wouldn't sound out of place on Your Hit Parade, which is pretty much the point.

        Radio City is about nostalgia, a carefully constructed attempt to recapture the magic of the holidays as we would like them to have been, and to still be.

        Part of the magic is in re-creating Christmas in New York, with the happy blur of holiday shopping in the Big City, and stopping by the tree at Rockefeller Center (complete with mini-ice rink).

        Part of the magic goes back to the beginning, with Radio City's justly famous Living Nativity.

        Radio City Christmas Spectacular, through Dec. 31, Aronoff Center, 241-7469.

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