As for the Xmas sprites ... using rsu-kro-rag-lite.exe and rsu-kro-renewal-lite.exe (or the links in your start menu to patch kRO and Renewal) should get rid of them, unless you added special Xmas effects in your data.ini. Make sure there are only the following (or less) entries in your data.ini:
[data]
0=abdata.grf
1=rdata.grf
2=data.grf
3=sdata.grf