A magician pulled a rabbit out of a hat. Dinger, the Sacramento Rivercats' mascot, signed autographs. Ruthie Bolton, veteran guard for the Sacramento Monarchs, sang "Silent Night."

It was an afternoon of face-painting, spray-on tattooing and holiday crafts for more than 100 pediatric cancer patients, their siblings and parents in the UC Davis Cancer Center auditorium. The annual event, held the second Friday of December, is sponsored by the Sacramento Active 20/30 Club, a civic organization that buys and wraps enough gifts for every child at the party. The club also arranges a magic act and visit from Santa.

The Keaton Raphael Memorial, a Roseville-based organization that supports pediatric cancer research at UC Davis Cancer Center, provided crafts and a mural project, in which partygoers fashioned clay "snow people" and affixed the creatures to a large board painted with a winter scene. The completed mural was carried across the street to UC Davis Children's Hospital to help decorate the pediatric inpatient cancer floor.

"It's a great event," says Jonathan Ducore, professor of pediatrics and head of the pediatric cancer program, who came in white coat and Santa hat. "The party makes a lot of kids very happy."

Children from throughout Northern California, southern Oregon and western Nevada come to UC Davis Cancer Center, the region's only National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center, for treatment. The UC Davis Pediatric Cancer Program includes a pediatric stem-cell transplant program and a large pediatric clinical trials program.