It’s traditional to get engaged over the holidays, but Hoda Kotb did the opposite, we’re told.

The beloved “Today” show co-host announced on the air on Monday that she has ended her eight-year romance with fiancé Joel Schiffman.

But Page Six is told that she actually broke up with the 63-year-old financier around Christmas and she only decided to make the announcement now because viewers had begun commenting about her missing engagement ring on social media.

Sources close to Kotb, 57, tell us that she broke it off because she had realized during the engagement that the marriage wouldn’t work out.

The couple — who share daughters Haley, 4, and Hope, 2 — had been together for eight years, but only got engaged in 2019.

“Joel and I have had a lot of prayerful and meaningful conversations over the holidays,” she said on the “Today” show Monday, “and we decided that we’re better as friends and parents than we are as an engaged couple, so we decided we are going to start this new year … on our new path as loving parents to our adorable, delightful children, and as friends.”

“It’s not like something happened. They say sometimes relationships are meant to be there for a reason, or a season or for a lifetime. And I feel like ours was meant to be there for a season,” she said later.

They plan to continue to co-parent.

https://www.gistchannel.com/2022/02/01/hoda-kotb-called-off-engagement-after-realizing-marriage-wouldnt-work/