The baked gingerbread forest, smelling of honey, was not just meant to be a birthday surprise for my daughter, but also a way to fight my loneliness over an empty Christmas without my children. It was also a sentimental reminder of the times when my mother still baked Christmas gingerbread.
It was a culinary-therapeutic activity. My daughter’s birthday is on 27th December – just after Christmas. Last year she went with her father to spend Christmas with his family. Divorce has its consequences, even after almost seven years. For example, I am without my children for Christmas. Once, on a similar occasion, I went to hand out presents to patients who had to stay on the ward in a psychiatric hospital over