This was one of the first Christmas's I can remember where I had fun. I have 2 kids, a grandson, a business, a demanding wife, and always seeking education. I had no problem running into Santa during all my busy time, so I don't think it was that hard to get in contact with him unless you were on a vacation those days. If you took the time to write Santa your letter I assume you had time to get them from Santa. Like others said, it was nice to have to go look for him instead of just sleeping idle at the GoE demanding presents without even any interaction. It was one thing I always kinda didn't like about Murmas. You would see TONS of old friends and people that didn't play anymore log on for a few hours during Christmas to get their gifts and then gone again.\
The tree rewards were still good, so people still got rewards for nothing, but to get the extra you had to put in a little extra. I know it took Chew a lot of his holiday time trying to make this Christmas very nice for people. These extra events at Christmas were a nice way of not only seeing who's still active, but who cares to put forth effort.