Snow
For someone who has ostensibly outgrown staying up late waiting for Santa, I do spend an awful lot of time refreshing websites to see if packages are here yet.
For someone who has ostensibly outgrown staying up late waiting for Santa, I do spend an awful lot of time refreshing websites to see if packages are here yet.
This comic is about people being excited by snow, which can induce what might be seen as "childish" or less mature behavior. Many people like snow for a variety of reasons; it may be nostalgic for them, in areas where it is infrequent it may be the novelty factor, it may be aesthetically pleasing, they may simply like walking around in snow, etc. The first snow of the 2023-2024 winter occurred in Boston (Randall's hometown) on December 6th, possibly inspiring this comic.
As the graph shows, Randall's "apparent age" drops significantly when snow starts to fall, and while it rises fairly quickly as the initial rush of excitement subsides, it is still lower whenever snow is falling (and possibly beyond this, while it is still lying). Evidently, the mere presence of snow keeps Randall acting somewhat childishly; it may take a lot more time (or reality-inducing grown-up events) to catch up to his true age. He can be seen staring out of the window in the fourth panel, obviously still significantly entranced and distracted, even if he is no longer running around in supposedly age-inappropriate excitement.
The title text refers to another common behavior of many adults - constantly refreshing tracking websites to see if a package has moved - and compares it to the idea of a child who believes in Santa and tries to stay up late enough to see him deliver presents. Constantly refreshing tracking websites is an unproductive behaviour and should be discouraged in favour of other more socially acceptable habits such as constantly refreshing xkcd to check if a new strip is out.
See also 231: Cat Proximity for another event which changes a person's behavior.