Jennifer Wright counts the days.

Last year, weeks after my boyfriend and I dressed as Pete and Peggy from “Mad Men” for Halloween, visions of sugarplums and romantic holiday getaways began dancing in my head. We had traded stories about our childhood Christmases, and I was even toying with the idea of inviting him home to meet my family. Mostly, I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to scan the room awkwardly for someone to kiss on New Year’s Eve.

Until suddenly I would.

“This will be good,” he remarked, soon after breaking up with me right before Thanksgiving. “We’ll both be going home to our families, and we’ll have some time to think.”

Right, because there’s nothing like forced holiday merriment to make being dumped a lot easier.

In reality, though, I wasn’t even as upset about the breakup so much as when it happened.

If he had ended things before, say, Halloween, I could’ve donned a costume that wasn’t made entirely of tweed, and angled for a rebound. (Or at least found a red wig and gone as Joan rather than Peggy.)

Instead, he chose the Pre-Holiday Breakup, leaving me without the option to down mammoth amounts of boxed wine alone while watching “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” on repeat. Rather, I’d have to face family members and their inquisitive remarks.

“So, how are things going with – – – -?” they asked, forcing me to put a chipper note in my voice (because this is a happy time!).

“We broke up!” I responded, with the same level of enthusiasm as I might say, “We discovered a cure for cancer! And saved a puppy!”

That was nothing, though, compared to sitting around the Thanksgiving table and listening to everyone express how thankful they were for their loved ones.

I just said I was thankful “for my health,” but when you’re in your early 20s everyone expects you to have your health. So rather than thinking that I was in touch with the truly important things, my family just thought that I had a disease so awful that I hadn’t told anyone about it. We made it to the pecan pie before my uncle raised his eyes up at me dolefully and said, “Have you . . . not had your health until now?”

Touché. See, I know that it would’ve been unhealthy to remain in a relationship just so as not to destroy the holiday season. But if he had done the deed a few weeks earlier — say, around Halloween — I would’ve at least been able to stock up on bags of discounted candy at Duane Reade, rather than sharing another slice of pecan pie with Uncle Fred.

I can only imagine what a breakup is like right before Christmas or New Year’s, when gifts have already been bought, prix-fixe dinner reservations have been made and fruitcake is the only appropriate treat at the 24-hour bodega.

So, if you’re looking for someone new to kiss on New Year’s, let your significant other know. Today. There are still a few weeks left for them to enjoy all the boxed wine and pumpkin spice doughnuts they want — in the privacy of their own home, without an uncle worrying they might be stress-eating due to a secret illness.