Put on some hot cocoa and curl up with this tale of Christmases Past and Christmases yet-to-be from December 14, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Here’s my wish list, with some background and explanation. It all started last Christmas actually… I’m in college, my boyfriend graduated from the same school about a year and a half ago. I went home for Christmas (I’m from about 2000 miles away, so it’s a relative-distance relationship…40 minutes when I’m in school, a couple thousand miles when I’m not). At this time we’d been dating for almost eight months. Our relationship had been going mostly wonderfully, fairy-tale and all. It had been my longest relationship EVER, as before the longest relationship I’d been in had been for about two weeks. When we met, we became close friends quickly. He was smarting from his breakup with a particular psycho-hose-beast.

She was his first ever/serious relationship. Over the summer (while I was home) she called him, yelled at him for a while that he’d gotten on with his life (meaning she was jealous of me) and that was the last I’d thought I’d ever hear about it.

Well, it was the holiday season, so being the sweet sensitive person he is, he decided to send PHB a Christmas card in an attempt to “make peace.” Personally, I would have never attempted communication with someone who treated me that badly. I would have lost their address, everything. So, there I was at home, trying to deal with my family and distant friends (also depressing holiday traditons) and one morning I got a phone call. I had been out all night the night before, so I was still asleep when my boyfriend called. My mom woke me up to tell me that he was on the phone.

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Oh noes! Flirty messages from old flames are troubling enough to current spouses, but for some married people, the temptation of having all your old flames just a click away may be too much. Divorce attorneys are reporting now that at least 1 in 5 divorce petitions cite Facebook as proof of an affair or inappropriate behavior.

We get emails from people worried about IM and text messages from exes, which certainly isn’t new, so as easy as Facebook makes it to reconnect with old flames, it’s no surprise that those inclined to stray are finding it easier to do so with more people, more often.

“The most common reason seemed to be people having inappropriate sexual chats with people they were not supposed to,” says Mark Keenan, Managing Director of Divorce-Online, in the Telegraph UK article reporting these findings.

Some cheaters are flaunting their misbehavior, and even informing their jilted spouse of their impending divorce by updating their relationship status.

While I believe that it’s possible to be platonic, mutually respectful friends with exes, I can also empathize with those who really kinda hate Facebook. Hate how ghosts of nightmares past seem to come back from the grave complete with slutty profile picture and a comment for everything that’s said and done, and how “it’s just Facebook, it doesn’t matter” starts to sound pretty weak when every word has an audience of hundreds or thousands.

Yule regret staying with him on December 21, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

My boyfriend seems to get mad when I talk to other guys, but when I try to talk to him he kinda ignores me for his other friends and the only time he talks to me is when no one else is around. He can never go anywhere with me, but I am always the one to ask. I just wanna be free from him. Do you think I should break up with him? I was gonna dump him, but thought I would wait until after Christmas because otherwise both of our holidays will be bad. I don’t even want a present from him because then I’ll feel bad. What should I do? I’m so confused! Please help!

— Nicole

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Speechless! I need to let People tell it while I compose myself …

One of Hollywood’s most enduring relationships has ended – Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins have broken up after more than two decades together, PEOPLE has learned exclusively.

Christmas is ruined. Bah Humbug!

Insanely great*:
Life Magazine, January 26, 1948
Quoth our tipster: More than 99% of these pages are UTTERLY FASCINATING. Wow. Post-war, pre-Mad Men enthusiasm, one foot in each half of the century. Amazing. At least buzz through the first 30 or so pages, including the “Atomic Road Show.” The Hollywood stuff is priceless.

Are you nuts about bolts?

* By “great,” we don’t mean “It would be great to roll back the clock on 62 years of feminism!” “Great,” as in, utterly glorious in its wacky retro exuberance.

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you can find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn assists a guy who is Haunted By Her Past – And perhaps with good reason, since she is not discouraging calls texts and emails from them like:

One guy, when he found out we were together, texted: “I guess you don’t love me any more.” Another guy — someone she was engaged to — texted several times to confirm that she was “truly happy” and yet another wants to meet up for lunch and a movie.

Read the letter at Happen then come back here to comment!

The Predicament of the Week from March 16, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I’ve been having this long-distance love affair for the past three years with a man who was a close family friend, until we got involved. To make a long story short, I’m now separated from my husband, and my lover and I have been trying to work on moving our relationship forward. Here’s the problem. He was supposed to come visit me (we haven’t seen each other in four months, as he lives overseas), and he’d even set the dates that he’d be over. Supposedly, he wasn’t able to come out sooner due to “business.” So there I am waiting for his phone call giving me flight details, when I get this email from the son-of-a-bit…. that he’s gone on vacation for the week to Spain (?!) and that I would “really be helping him out” if I came over instead in two weeks time for the weekend. Oh, the clincher was his closing line — get this BG: “Sorry about the prevarication.” Like, now we need to use fancy words for Big Fat Liar?!

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Hey!

BG is currently bizzy with Elin Nordegren.