I usually grab a present, then head to the left to the helper elf and have him deliver a present. (This sets off the alarm clock along the way, but that's okay.. snoopers are getting the rest anyway). Then, I give the snooper by the tree my present. I hop down, grab the 1up and then jump in the water. Because I didn't deliver a present to the tree, I get restarted back up at the sleigh. Next present to the bottom snooper. After giving him a present, jump back in the water to get back to the top. Last present to the closest and then exit the level. The elf counts as a legitimate delivery so giving the rest to snoopers is valid.

I think around 16k CPU cycles is where the frame rate evens out for me. I think the slowdown in level 3 is largely due to the water sprites. I have a "dumb" SUB that draws foreground specific background sprites and makes sure to redraw them EVERY game cycle even if there's no collisions. I should rework that so it only redraws when Santa is near it.

Just checked.. yeah, bypassing that SUB call lets me go down to 5k CPU cycles on that level. It's definitely a CPU tanker.

It iterates through each sprite tile on the map and checks if it has a water attribute. If it does, it draws the sprite (using the slower background draw method pixel by pixel instead of PUT as GET/PUT eats up running memory). Really dirty way of doing things.