After realizing that the swaying was on a consistent timing, I enjoyed it a lot more. I think the only thing it needs to make it perfect for me would be a drunken swaying animation that actually indicated exactly when Santa is swaying left or right. It would make it much easier to plan the next jump timing.
Viewing post in Drink Until You Pass Out jam comments
At first we considered increasing the player speed the more drunk he gets, but it made for unwieldy character control, so instead we decided his sway would be at constant speed but with each beer the time he sways increases.
Others have also suggested implementing a drunk animation to show his movement, so we'll definitely take this into consideration moving forward. Thanks a lot for your comment and feedback, and for playing our game :)