THE HOLIDAY RUSH : Counting on Christmas : Word to the Wise: Don’t Forget to Tip the Valet, the Nanny, the Maid . . .

Christmas, we’re told, is the time for remembering people who perform services for us throughout the year--and who can forget, with all the reminders? Greeting cards are tucked inside our newspapers; a Christmas tree decorates the valet counter in the parking garage.

Carol Forsythe of Mission Hills says her manicurist gave her an emery board and hand lotion, so what could she do but dig into her pocket in return? Of course, Forsythe says, she would have tipped her manicurist anyway.

“I have an ongoing relationship with her, week after week,” Forsythe says. “At the holidays, you do something extra.”

And so it goes, as the countdown to Christmas enters its final days. There are the gift list, the card list, and, yes, the tip list. The roster includes personal trainers, gardeners, nannies, hairdressers and maids--not to mention doormen and caddies. Forget someone and you’re sure to get a nudge.

“These days, everyone thinks they should get a tip,” moans New York etiquette consultant Hilka Klinkenberg.

“It has gotten terribly messy and out of hand,” says Judith Martin, who writes a syndicated etiquette column under the name Miss Manners. “A Christmas bonus or tip at the end of the year is certainly nice for the right people, but not for service people who don’t provide any service--like the garbage collector that rattles you awake in the morning.”

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No doubt many service people expect a tip because they don’t earn that much anyway. Garage attendants and gardeners may earn $5 an hour, some baby-sitters receive as little as $100 a week.

The tip, in many cases, has evolved from a reward for good service to protection from bad service, says John Schein, founder of Tippers International, an organization dedicated to fostering tipping as a reward. The group’s motto: What you receive is what you leave.

The organization, based in Oshkosh, Wis., publishes holiday tipping guides for various cities, and encourages consumers to withhold tips if the service isn’t satisfactory.

Some etiquette consultants disagree with that approach. Jan Yager, a consultant in Connecticut, says consistency is important. People who tip a valet generously throughout the year are expected to do so at Christmastime. The holiday tip amount shouldn’t vary much from year to year; if your financial situation dictates a smaller tip, explain that to the recipient, Yager says.

Withholding a tip, even to express dissatisfaction, may damage a relationship beyond repair, Yager says.

“If you withhold the tip, how are you ever going to improve the service, especially if you tipped in past years?” Yager says.

That sort of thinking is apparently a factor in Manhattan, where holiday tipping has been refined beyond mere ritual. Consultant Klinkenberg put it this way: “It is blackmail.”

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In ritzy apartment towers near Central Park, each resident receives a Christmas card signed by everyone who works in the building.

A strict tipping hierarchy exists: The superintendent gets more than the doorman, who gets more than the porters.

Breaches in tipping etiquette are remembered. Residents say there is a relationship between the size of a tip and the speed with which a clogged drain is repaired.

At Manhattan office buildings, the list of people awaiting tips is longer. There are security guards, the security director, the cleaning staff--both day and night shifts--receptionists, the building electrician and, at the top of the heap, the building manager.

Valets in parking garages keep score, scrawling the names of tippers in marker on white boards, a sort of “tippers honor roll.” A journalist who ignored such a hint found a card on his windshield. It said: “Merry Christmas--Second Notice.”

In Los Angeles, hints are gentler. Parking attendants in the downtown Arco Towers garage have placed a Christmas tree next to the valet stand.

“It’s in the spirit of the season,” Mauricio Guardado, head valet, explains. The bounty beneath the tree suggests the spirit is catching. There is a case of wine, a case of champagne, a bottle of rum, several tins of popcorn and a few boxes of candy. On top of that, Guardado says, each of the 15 attendants can expect several hundred dollars in cash.

Guardado says valets appreciate the tips but don’t consider them charity. They have customers’ cars ready at quitting time and keep the cars clean, he says.

In service businesses, tales of great tips abound. Guardado recalls a Christmas six years ago when a customer gave him $100. He used it to buy matching dresses for his three young daughters.

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Among nannies, talk is of trips to Hawaii or jewelry from Tiffany’s. Anne Hannan, a nanny for an obstetrician in Cleveland, Ohio, received a multimedia computer and laser-jet printer from her employer last year--plus a cash bonus.

“I was really blown away,” Hannan said. “I wasn’t expecting a PC.”

Breathtaking bonuses are unusual.

“It has to do with how much you make and how much you pay the nanny and how deserving she is,” says Sheilagh Roth, director of English Nanny & Governess School in Cleveland.

In some professions, believe it or not, no tipping is the order of the day. Postal workers aren’t allowed to receive cash, though Postal Service spokesman Larry Dozier said a token gift worth under $20 “would not be looked upon with suspicion.”

At the shoeshine stand in Citicorp Plaza in downtown Los Angeles, workers laughed when asked about holiday tipping. “We don’t get anything extra,” said a worker named Maxie.

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Times staff writer John J. Goldman in New York contributed to this story.