That reminds me of a traditional Russian habit of baking sweet dough 'larks' (ie birds) that look much like the cute doughmen in your photo. In my family it was just something we did with with the kids with scraps of dough left over from baking other things, but I think it had more of a seasonal association in the past.

I don't remember if it's normally associated with a particular season- the lark turns up CONSTANTLY in springtime rituals in the folklore, so it's probably a spring-related tradition.