Thanks a lot for the detailed review!
For the theme part, the idea was originally to open the surprise box (hence the walking part), and have an animation show the minigame you unlocked!
I just abandonned the idea mid-jam, I had no hope in the game (whoopsies), and just left that little box to open to have the minigame.
(I certainly planned to create a minigame related to christmas too, but couldn't find an interesting gameplay about it).