GINGERBREAD MAN 4TH BIRTHDAY PARTY Since my daughter has a December birthday, I thought this theme would work well. We had 12 children (including the birthday girl and her sister), ranging in age from 2 to 11 (but the three who were over five years old served as my helpers").  INVITATIONS: I bought pre-cut red cards with matching envelopes at Michael's. On the front of each one I definitely would have bought them!) I drew eyes and buttons with black marker and  mouths with red marker. On the back I glued a printout that said "Run run  as fast as you can Come to a birthday with the Gingerbread Man! ...and then the party info." DECORATIONS: I mostly just used my Christmas decorations plus a candy-cane tinsel garland from Oriental Trading red and white balloons and one mylar "peppermint candy" balloon which I tied to the birthday girl's chair. The food table had a red cloth candy-cane design plates and  napkins (because I couldn't find ones with a gingerbread man theme) and plain red cups which I decorated with candy cane stickers. I made a centerpiece of a cookie sheet a rolling pin a gingerbread man cookie cutter and a gingerbread man doll.  ACTIVITIES: When the guests arrived they could choose from  3 activities. (We had an hour for this part of the party so all but the late arrivals got to do all three). One was gingerbread man cookie decorating. The gingerbread men were pre-baked and the kids could add frosting sprinkles raisins and candy. We put these on small paper plates inside a ziploc bag labeled with the kid's name to take home. For the second activity we had rolls of brown package-wrapping paper. We cut off long sheets taped them to the floor and had the kids lie down so we could trace around their bodies and  then they could decorate their life-size gingerbread boy or girl with markers stickers and glitter glue. Some of the kids did not want to be traced and just wanted a smaller piece of the brown paper to decorate. The third activity which was a huge hit was the play dough table. I got a recipe for homemade play dough scented with peppermint extract from my daughter's preschool teacher and made two batches one white and one pink. I set the play dough out on a table with rolling pins cookie cutters muffin pans cupcake papers etc. After the hour for the three activities one of my older child "helpers" read the Gingerbread Man story to the children while the other "helpers" held up props (old man doll old woman doll gingerbread man doll stuffed cow stuffed horse stuffed fox ---you could vary these to fit the version of the story that you have or even cut them out of cardboard if you don't happen to own a gingerbread man doll or a stuffed fox. The final activity before the cake was a game. It was similar to musical chairs. Instead of chairs I taped a path of construction-paper "stepping stones" and a blue construction -paper "river" on the floor. The kids had to march around to music and when the music stopped whoever was standing "in the river" was out and had to go to the fox's den (one corner of the room with the stuffed fox from the story-telling in it). We told the kids that when they fell in the river they had to go "visit Mr. Fox but that they were much too clever to get eaten! CAKE: I made white cupcakes in gingerbread-man paper liners, topped them with whipped cream (which I think tastes better than white frosting), and piped red stripes across to make them look like peppermint candies. On each cupcake was standing a little one-inch-tall gingerbread man cookie. I happened to find a package of four gingerbread-man-shaped tealight candles at Joanne Fabrics, which were really too big for the  cupcakes, so I also made a six-inch-round white cake with the same peppermint stripe" frosting and arranged the four candles on it in a circle. I scattered the cake plate with round peppermint candies and the leftover one-inch gingerbread men. Besides the cake I served vanilla ice cream cups with  crushed peppermint candy on top apple juice chocolate milk and coffee for the parents. An alternative to the peppermint-stripe cupcakes would be to use the Wilton gingerbread man cake pan (also available as cupcake pans).  FAVORS: Each child received a plastic gingerbread man mug with a candy-striped handle from Oriental Trading. Each mug had a mini (quarter page size) photocopied gingerbread man coloring book a "make a gingerbread  man" sticker sheet (also from Oriental Trading) a little box of raisins some peppermint-striped Hershey Kisses and a candy cane which was decorated with a little gingerbread man embellishment from the scrapbook section at Michael's.   "