Twas the day before Christmas and all through the house / not a creature was stirring, save the click of my... touchpad. Well so much for that standard yuletide parody. Instead, let's get straight to some early unwrapping with a trio of stocking stuffers from the JiG Archives. We've got escape, platform, and puzzle presents this week in the Vault, and they'll give to all a good night.

• Snowing - It takes commitment to make a truly great Christmas Escape game. Sure, anyone can put together the template, add a pine tree to look behind, a couple of stockings whose color sequence tells you how to open that wall-safe, or wrap some keys up in gift boxes. It's much harder to grab that holiday feel. Well, 58 Works knows how to do things right, and they do do things right in Snowing, a point-and-click escape game. It has just the right mix of classic imagery and seasonal whimsy (so many whales!), along with great puzzles and a charming presentation.
• e7 - After a week of trudging through snow-drifts, a game about a robot on a planet where the ground bounces you like a bowlful of jelly is a perfect bit of escapism. Still, the alien planet of e7, a scifi platformer by Jgames, is plenty cold, plenty windy, and plenty hostile, even before the deadly laser-bots show up. And yet, like a raging blizzard, there is somehow peace and calm to be found in the midst of whirring activity... Just don't too soothed. That Earth-destroying bomb won't be deactivating itself, you know.
• Wooden Path - And now, for our Vault readers dealing with the heat of a summer down under (or those in the northern hemisphere who wish they were dealing with said heat), we present a lovely trip through some greenery in the form of Wooden Path, a sliding block puzzle game by Remivision. Be careful, though: this walk in the park is no walk in the park: you'll have more than fifty rivers to cross before you make it home (and suddenly, the whole outside freezing over doesn't sound so bad.)

While we welcome any comments about this weekly feature here, we do ask that if you need any help with the individual games, please post your questions on that game's review page. Well, what are you waiting for? Get out there and rediscover some awesome!

And in the words of Krusty the Clown, have a merry Christmas, a happy (couple-weeks ago) Chanukah, a kwazy Kwanzaa, a tip-top Tet, and stay safe this Safar.