1. Gingerbread man
One large cookie with a bow tie, three buttons and piped cuffs, and peppermints in the corners.
Free printable · Color online
Gingerbread man coloring pages
Six pages from the cookie tin: a large gingerbread man with a bow tie and buttons, a gingerbread woman with a scalloped hem, the two of them together over a row of cookies, and two baking sheets of cut-out cookies, stars, hearts, trees, bells and mittens, each iced in a different pattern.
The gingerbread people are drawn the way they are decorated in a kitchen, with piped cuffs at the wrists and ankles. Print them on letter paper or color them on screen.
Each page prints on one sheet of US letter paper. Under every page are buttons to print just that one, to color it on screen, or to save it as a picture.
2. Gingerbread woman
The same cookie in a skirt with a scalloped icing hem, a heart and a bow.
3. Gingerbread couple with cookies
Both cookies side by side, above a row of four iced shapes: a star, a heart, a round and a tree.
4. Tray of iced cookies
Nine cut-out cookies on a baking sheet, each iced in bands of scallops, dots and waves.
5. Tray of cookies in bold lines
Nine cookies with wider icing bands and heavier outlines.
6. Tray of cookies, finely iced
The busiest tray: narrow bands and small piped shapes on every cookie.
About gingerbread people
Shaped gingerbread is far older than the cookie cutter. Elizabeth I of England is said to have had gingerbread figures made to look like guests at her court in the 1500s, which is often given as the start of the gingerbread “man.”
The runaway cookie of the nursery tale arrived much later: “The Gingerbread Boy” was printed in the American children’s magazine St. Nicholas in 1875. The cookie itself is flavored with ginger, cinnamon and cloves and sweetened with molasses, which gives it the dark color. The white decoration is royal icing piped through a small round tip, which is why the lines on these pages are thin and wavy.
Color ideas for these pages
A gingerbread cookie has very little color of its own, so the fun is in the icing. Color the cookie a flat warm brown first, darker toward the edges where it bakes harder, then pick two icing colors and use them everywhere: cuffs, buttons, bow, hem.
On the cookie trays, treat every cookie as a different flavor: a pale sugar cookie yellow, a chocolate brown, a gingerbread. Color the tray itself a cool gray so the cookies stand out against it.
Which page to start with
This set has 6 pages: 3 bold and easy, 2 medium and 1 detailed. The quickest to finish is “Gingerbread woman,” with 43 areas to color, and the longest is “Tray of iced cookies,” with 536. Bold and easy pages have heavy lines and large shapes that suit markers and tired eyes; detailed pages have fine lines for sharp pencils or gel pens.
How printing, saving and coloring on screen work is explained on the coloring pages home. If you like filling shapes by number, Linseed Loft Color by Number is a free paint by number game with 74 pictures.