I suspect the mathiness is actually designed to be, y'know, *fun* for the intended audience -- nothing we've seen so far actually requires math skill to solve the problems, and they're kind of cool and interesting math facts, so I have to assume that it's there as culturally appropriate random subject matter. But that doesn't make it less brain-bending when you're out of practice or just plain non-mathy. It would be better to have problems that are both differently written and more explicitly broken down in terms of the programming skills they're targeting.

When DW+OTW rule the world, beginning programming classes will be full of students who say, "I think get the programming, but I just can't wrap my head around this Yuletide Matching problem!"