Only Six Breakup Days Left Till Christmas

A public service announcement.

I have, in my venerable career as a columnist, made this announcement before, but as usual, no one was paying any attention, so I see I am going to have to do it again:

You have only six days left to break up before Christmas. The rule is quite clear: Anyone who breaks up with their partner within three weeks of the holiday is a jerk. You will never be invited to someone’s house on Superbowl Sunday, the dating sites will ban you, and animal rescue agencies will not allow you to adopt because believe me, these things get around. You will not be able to attend a festive event without whispering and pointing and waiters spitting in your drink. You know the red dress Bette Davis wore in “Jezebel”? You will be that dress.

Emotionally rattled? I anticipated as much. So now, I will open the column to questions.

Christmas is not my holiday – I’m Jewish. Why should I follow this idiotic rule, especially when the lease on my new place begins January 1^st?

Not your holiday? Didn’t you go eat Chinese with a gang of friends every Christmas and get a tree when the kids were small?  Haven’t you watched, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, hollering, “Oh, just let the depressive drown!” Christmas is for everyone whether you like it or not.

But we share a dog.

If you break up within three weeks of Christmas, you don’t deserve a dog. You can find that in Section Three, Subdivision A of the Christmas Breakup Rule.

I just don’t believe you. Where did this so-called rule about not breaking up with anyone after the first week of December come from?

It began in the 1880s when a little girl named Virginia wrote a letter to a kindly newspaper editor: “Four days before Christmas, Daddy told Mommy he had had a life change and was in love with the blacksmith. Then he moved out. My little friends tell me monogamy is an unnatural construct and this is the way all men are. Can this be true? ”

“Dear Virginia,” the editor replied. “Your little friends are wrong. Anyone who dumps someone less than three weeks before Christmas is a complete dirtbag. By the way, I’ve seen your mother and I’d love to ask her out. What do you think? Too soon?

Are you telling me some times of the year are better than others for breaking up?

Absolutely. The last week of March, when Valentine’s Day is well in the rearview mirror, is an excellent time. The weather is raw, the days are still short, they’re going to be depressed anyway. Also, late October, when there are no major holidays for a month, and the falling leaves remind us that sooner or later we all die. I’d use that as an opener, You see that orange leaf, on the tree outside this charming bistro? That brilliant shade of orange is its last gasp. Any moment, it’s going to fall to the ground and it will all be over. Like us. But you’re too late for that,  so what I’m thinking is, break it off right now, this morning. Take your future ex to brunch and, after you’ve finished your eggs, tell her goodbye. Make it fast, like the guillotine.

It sounds so cruel.

Dribble some yolk on your chin. No one can feel awful if they’re dumped by someone with yolk on their chin. That was how Angelina Jolie got out of her marriage to Brad Pitt when he was drinking. Having breakfast in a diaphanous negligee one morning, she allowed a tiny bit of egg yolk to dribble onto her chin.

“It was repulsive,” Pitt later confided to his friend Quentin Tarantino. “I found myself wondering how I could ever have gotten involved with such an unattractive creature.”

“I get that,” Tarantino said. “I myself cannot abide a slovenly woman. Neatness counts. You’ve been gut-shot and disemboweled during dinner? That’s what napkins are for.”

Is the time of day you break it off that important?

Absolutely. Late morning breakups give your future ex-girlfriend time to call her girlfriends and talk for two hours about what a jerk you are. And, if you’re a guy, it gives you time to go home, watch the game, then call the woman you’ve been messing around with on the side. 

What are you talking about? There’s nobody on the side.

Yeah, right. Now tell me about Santa Claus.