A Blaring, Crowded, Congested Christmas : Retailing: Think it’s a hassle fighting the traffic near your favorite mall? Try living nearby, where the constant Yuletide congestion makes it tough for neighbors to feel very merry.

It’s that time of year again for ho-ho-ho, good will to men and nerve-shredding, horn-blaring traffic around shopping malls. And that third holiday tradition is threatening to rub out the other two for many residents near retail centers.

During the almost five-week span between big turkey dinners, the millions of consumers spending hours looking for those perfect holiday gifts translate into heavy parking and traffic in adjacent communities.

Shopping malls say they are doing their best to ease the annual headaches, short of canceling the holiday season. In the case of the Glendale Galleria, those measures include shuttling employees, and even shoppers, from a parking lot at the Los Angeles Zoo.

But that provides scant comfort for mall neighbors, who might well be called “Prisoners of Christmas.” For them, the season means changing their schedules and routes, as well as planning their weekends around forays into the outside world.

“It’s just unbelievable,” said one woman who lives near the Puente Hills Mall. “I don’t go out. I got up at 7 a.m. one Saturday to go to the grocery store. After 9 o’clock, you literally can’t get out of my neighborhood.”

Near the trendy Melrose Avenue shopping area, some residents try to avoid driving anywhere for fear of losing their hard-won parking spaces, even though signs limit parking in certain neighborhoods.

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” said Linda Weiner about living near a big-time shopping area during the holidays.

Even though Weiner lives two houses away from a less shopping-intensive section of Melrose, the restaurants and other attractions bring traffic, noise, litter and parking shortages--problems that only get worse at this time of year, she said.

“I don’t use Melrose anymore if I can help it, or I go early in the morning. It’s just too busy,” Weiner said.

Luke Asbury lives on a street directly behind Westside Pavilion, and he admits to spending a good deal of time these days with his in-laws, who live a few miles away.

“While it is somewhat convenient to have all the shops and the (Vons) market there, getting in and out in your car is almost impossible,” he said. “I’ve had cases where it’s taken me 20 minutes to get to my driveway” from the street corner.

Shopping mall officials have tried a variety of measures to ease the crunch.

Most require employees to park away from the mall and then walk or ride a shuttle bus to work.

Glendale Galleria rented part of the Los Angeles Zoo’s parking lot, a seven-minute ride from the mall, marketing director Elizabeth Burke said. This year, the mall is using the lot not only for employee parking, it is advertising it as a hassle-reducing way for shoppers to park, complete with complimentary coffee and doughnuts, she said.

“You get out of your car significantly faster than if you sit in your car and circle” the parking garage, Burke said. “Some people circle for 45 minutes to an hour.”

The city of Glendale has stepped up operations of its Beeline shuttle, which roams a four-mile route while stopping at all the town’s main shopping areas. During the holidays, the shuttle buses run longer hours and on weekends.

Many malls hire people to direct traffic and may offer valet parking for a few dollars. At the huge South Coast Plaza, where traffic has been known to back up onto the nearby 405 Freeway, officials are trying to teach shoppers about alternative routes by using ads and cards that are distributed at the shopping center, marketing director Maura Eggan said.

The regional center’s six valet parking stations are very popular, as is the free valet baby stroller parking inside the mall, she said.

One of the most delicate neighborhood-mall balances is maintained at the Westside Pavilion, where quiet residential streets sit right in the center’s back yard. Political battles have been fought for years over the size of the mall and a proposed addition and what will be done to ease the effect on the neighborhood.

Westside Pavilion officials spend more time than do most mall executives on neighborhood relations, and they have even adopted two schools--Palms Junior High and Overland Elementary--as part of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s adopt-a-school program. This year, school children performed a holiday program at the Westside Pavilion and decorated Christmas trees on display there, marketing director Patricia Neill said.

The city has pitched in by sending Department of Transportation employees to restrict traffic on some residential streets near the Westside Pavilion.

In addition, so-called preferential parking districts have been created--sometimes over the objections of nearby business owners--near some malls and sections of Melrose, among other places. In preferential parking zones, varying limits are placed on parking for those who don’t have permits.

“The businesses are very angry with the neighborhood, saying we’re destroying their businesses with the preferred parking zones,” said Weiner, who is president of the Melrose Action Committee, a homeowner group. “But I don’t think any of them would want to live on a street and not be able to park at night in front of their homes.”

Residents also must pay extra to buy extra permits if they want to have a party during the restricted hours, she said.

Some residents say the preferential parking areas have improved matters. But, they add, the restrictions don’t always work.

“The real hard-core shoppers don’t care,” Asbury said.

The homeowner said he once told a woman who parked in front of his house during a well-publicized sale that she was risking a $28 ticket. “This gal blithely said, ‘Oh, that’s all right. I’ll save much more than that at the sale,’ ” Asbury said.

Eggan of South Coast Plaza noted that the holiday crunch is pretty much inevitable.

“We’re a healthy economy, so people are out there shopping,” she said. “And frankly, I think people savor the war stories. There’s the spirit of sacrifice.”

In the end, mall neighbors try to be philosophical about the whole thing.

“We all kind of grin and grind our teeth,” said Marilyn Tusher, who lives near the Westside Pavilion. “You know that you have to put up with it.”

“So, well,” Asbury said, “that’s life in L.A.”