pick up & deliver games where resources start from one location?

I'd appreciate any feeback on the general framework I came up with based on delivering gifts:

-Players try out for the role of Santa travelling along a path starting at the North Pole and returning to the North Pole after making deliveries.

-Every player starts at the North Pole with 7 cubes ("gifts") that get delivered up to 7 houses (one delivery per player).

-The path will have several spaces in between each house that players can move along (sharing spaces is fine).

-Movement is determined by playing card(s). There is a shared draw pile and players always refresh to 4 cards after their turn. Card values will be 1-4. Typically you can only play one card but the player in last place on the path can play two if they are the same value, e.g., 2+2= 4 movement points.

-You can skip houses by choice or if you don't have the cards to make a delivery but you can't go back once you've passed a house. You get one penalty coal cube if you skip a house.

-Points can be attained in four ways:

1. First, by dropping off a present you get points depending on the order you arrive at the house. For example, in a four player game the point values in each house could be 10, 6, 3, 1. First player to arrive gets 10, second 6, etc.
2. Second, there will be a similar bonus at the finish line encouraging players to finish first.
3. Third, everyone will have two hidden goal cards that gives them bonus points for being first place in specific house. One player might get +5 points for making the first delivery in house's 5, & 7 for a total of 10 bonus points.
4. Penalty points for undelivered gifts (coal cubes). Same scale as above (-1, -3, -6, -10, etc.)

Can you think of anything else that I might experiment with? I have a feeling the card movement mechanic may be a bit boring. I like the catch-up idea of last place being able to play two cards instead of one. The hidden bonus points might make players jump ahead even if it means skipping one house. I could also tinker with the scoring at each house making last place more attractive at some houses versus others. For example, instead of 10, 6, 3, 1, the values could be 7, 6, 3, 3.

Thanks for any feedback.

Yeah, you may be right and the limited, non-seasonal appeal. I've brainstormed other ideas but it's tough to come off with something original in a crowded field of pick-up and deliver games.

No, so you can imagine my surprise when you posted that contest. lol Thanks for some ideas to consider.

I was thinking of splitting the draw deck into two piles consisting of 1's & 2's and 3's & 4's. After playing one movement card from a hand of four, the player would replenish one card from the pile of their choice. Lower cards are good for more precision landing on specific spaces but higher ones are better for faster movement but risk overshooting a space (if they miss, they can't go back). I think the catch-up mechanic of the last place player being allowed to play a pair would work well and might encourage hanging back at specific points. Also, I was going to make scoring cards that get shuffled and placed on the board randomly before each game. So for example, destination one might score 6,4,2 and destination six would score 7, 3, 3. Along with drawing cards from two decks of different values, that would add some more variability.

I thought some more today about a different theme and came up with the idea of players being bomber pilots and having to drop bombs on targets and return to their home base afterwards. What I thought would be really cool was using the Snow Tails steering mechanic by placing the steering cards on the wings and rear stabilizers of the jets. I love that mechanic but it's so original and elegant, I don't know how one uses it again without being a complete rip-off.