Happy Gingerbread Cookie Cutter

The gingerbread man is the one biscuit everybody can draw from memory: round head, stubby arms held out to the sides, two thick legs and a permanent grin. This is a cutter for that outline, and the word in the name is the point — it is the cheerful version of the shape rather than a plain silhouette. Gingerbread dough is forgiving stuff to cut, which is part of why the shape has lasted since the Tudors were pressing it into moulds. The cutter earns its place in a Christmas tin, but it does not need December: school baking afternoons, party bags, a batch strung on ribbon for the tree, a tray of them iced with somebody's name. One file, one cutter, and the sort of small useful print that finally explains the machine to relatives who never quite saw the point of it.