Thank you for the detailed feedback! I think we may have goofed on the Xbox/PS kids and got them backwards (er, I mean, they put on the wrong shirts that day!). No kid should need coal unless they are either rude to Santa or mean to another kid.
And yeah, you could certainly cheat by writing things down. At one point the plan was to add a time component, so you would want to go quickly and not take time to write things down, but the puzzles get so intricate I think that would have just made it too frustrating. Though it might have addressed the music-looping issue, too. :)
Anyway, thank you for playing — it was a fun game to make!