Well, "hard" mode certainly lives up to its name. It takes at least fifty presents at any stage of that difficulty for the side panel to start opening up and revealing the character underneath. Not to mention that the amount of coal that drops at that difficulty level is like an avalanche at times, and the side panel starts to retract if you don't score quickly enough. I did manage to beat "medium", though, which is still more of a challenge than "easy" by all metrics, but "hard"? Nothin' doin'.
The character in the side panel is cute, if nothing else. I have an old MLP OC with similar colors (though they're a slightly lighter shade of blue). Shame that the endings of the different difficulties are practically the same. I would've liked to see alternative art for the extra effort expended. (Cute cage on Rudolph in the group pic at the end, though.) And maybe it'd be fun to have the side panel change a little based on difficulty—"easy" is as normal; "medium" throws a cage on the cutie and some jingle-bell cuffs; and maybe "hard" throws on an armbinder and a gag of some kind? (I just really like bondage, and the added difficulty would certainly fit the motif.)