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Today’s Hoda Kotb Celebrates Christmas With Her 2 Daughters After Joel Schiffman Split
One big happy family? After spending Thanksgiving apart, fans wondered if Hoda Kotb and ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman would get together for Christmas this year.
Joel, 65, was noticeably absent in an Instagram photo that Hoda, 59, shared on December 25. The Today host posted a selfie with her daughters, Haley Joy, 6, and Hope Catherine, 4, whom she welcomed via adoption during her relationship with the financier. They sat on the beach in matching Christmas pajamas, smiling and laughing together.
Joel was also not pictured in a snap captured as Hoda decorated her home’s Christmas tree alongside the kids on December 4. However, he was still very much a presence for the activities, as a family photo featuring Hoda, Joel and the girls hung right next to the festive tree. A stocking was also hung in Joel’s honor reading “Dad.”
The pair split in January 2022 but vowed to remain close friends. However, Hoda spent Thanksgiving at her New York City home along with her siblings, mom and daughters.
Hoda shared photos from their family Thanksgiving dinner on Instagram, with Joel missing the occasion. The former couple have been coparenting Haley and Hope, most recently taking them trick-or-treating around NYC on October 31.
Joel and Hoda got engaged in November 2019 after six years of dating. However, fans began to worry about the status of their relationship when she stopped wearing her engagement ring on the air in January 2022. That month, Hoda told Today show viewers that the pair had split.
“Joel and I have had a lot of prayerful and meaningful conversations over the holidays, and we decided that we are 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 adorably delightful children and as friends,” Hoda told viewers on January 31, 2022. “It’s not like something happened. They say sometimes relationships are meant to be there for a reason, a season or a lifetime, this was for a season.”
On November 16, an insider told Closer exclusively that Hoda was actually hoping for a reconciliation with Joel.
“She realized there really isn’t anyone better for her than Joel,” the source revealed. “Hoda’s hopeful that things are moving in the right direction. Her friends think there’s chemistry between them and Hoda’s privately confided that he’ll always be The One.”
While she happily accepted cohost Jenna Bush Hager‘s offer to set her up on a date in October 2022, nothing materialized and Hoda realized that “no one compares to Joel.”
