Raise Your Hand If You're Knackered

Quelle surprise - it is December so this is the one about being tired enough to want to live in forest with a family of squirrels and Taylor Swift.

Do you know what I was doing back in 2013? Well, I was ten years younger for starters! I was up before five in the morning. Yes, in The Fours. I was up in The Fours, so I could be at my local gym when it opened at 5. Haha. It was Joburg - gyms open at 5am. Here in Cape Town, Jozi Gymmers, I can tell you that they do not do this. Like, not ever.

Anyhoo, I was at gym to half-heartedly stagger along the treadmill. Why such an ungodly hour? It was so that I could be home and showered by 6am when I woke my delicious punks and readied them for school. We’d be out the door by 7am with lunches packed and shoes on and I’d be at Grazia HQ by 8-ish. And then I’d work – in a good bra and high heels and accessories and blow-dried hair and lipstick. And I’d do it all again the next day. It’s exhausting just typing that paragraph.

But I wasn’t remotely tired. I was totally, robustly, joyously a-okay – loved work life, mom life, home life. I had a way wilder social life than I do now too. Fast forward a decade and the thought of adding Elf On A Shelf to that roster fills me with a bone-deep weariness. When did I get so knackered?!

This week, my social media feeds have been awash in visuals of that little shite - The Elf. Younger moms, how do you do it?! I’ve seen elves pooping hot chocolate powder and stealing food. I have spied elves shaving dad’s hair, snoozing in light fittings and ziplining across lounges. Those striped legs have can-canned all over my Instagram with abandon this week. To paraphrase one of my favourite books about the mom-work-life balance, I Don’t Know How She Does It, I don’t know how you do it.

Also, that bloody elf has a lot to answer for – he is a batshite crazy, chaotic, work-shy, little so-and-so. Barely doing anything good for Santa, but causing truckloads of work for the rest of you. PS Read Allison Pearson’s very funny book I mentioned above, if you haven’t. Elf On A Shelf was clearly not a thing when Allison and I were having children and, for this, I am eternally grateful.

So there’s Old Me wanging on about Doing It All a decade ago and there’s new me super grateful that this ‘doing it all’ malarkey didn’t include Elf On A Shelf, as well as everything else. And then there’s someone like JLo, stepping out this week - perfectly polished - in a forking breast plate instead of a top. Not just any breast plate, mind you, a cropped one. If you’re currently imagining this in your head instead of looking at the picture then yes, it is as mind-boggling as you think. Your lower bewb is, in fact, hanging out the bottom of your, erm, breast plate. It trembles just above the creamy blancmange that is your middle-aged tum. Oh wait, hang on, it’s still JLo. Her bewbs haven’t so much as quivered and her abs are still inviolable. JLo dares to also be six years older than me.

Do you know what I absolutely don’t want to have to do? Wear a breast plate that’s a crop top, with my undercarriage being paparrazzi’d. Do you want to know what many women all over the world did when they saw JLo in said Joan Of Arc number? They snarked things like : ‘hmmm, shame, this is very unflattering, why isn’t she pulling in her stomach.’ Oh please, Patricia. Form an orderly queue if you’d like to look half as glorious as JLo at 54. She’s a beast! This is why we can’t have nice things. Want to know what else is A Nice Thing We Can’t Have? French Timothee Chalamet.

Hear me out. Timothee – who’s entire name, I think you can agree, gives something of a whopper of a hint as to his family lineage – is being lambasted for not being French enough. Zut alors, whatever that means. The man speaks French fluently, his father is French. When interviewed in the vernacular, he answers. In French. This week Vulture – not French, btw – posed the question: is he French or faux? Honestly, not making this up. Cue your eyerolls for the stupidest investigative feature. According to Vulture, he is ‘flaunting his accent’ and he has never lived in France. Lord help the diaspora. Can Timothee just be left alone to be interviewed in French. It is one of life’s great pleasures. Even grumpy co-star Hugh Grant agrees.

Although Hugh is also in trouble. But then I think he likes being in trouble. His faux curmudgeonly interviews for Willy Wonka are absolutely hilarious. Generally laughing the most? Why, it’s his old faux Frenchy costar Timothee Chalamet. Guess who else is havin’ a laugh this week? It’s Taylor Swift.

She is Time’s Person Of The Year. She brought her cat to the cover shoot. She single-handedly added more than $5 billion to the US ecomony this year, thanks to her Eras Tour. And yes, there are many reasons why it also should not be her. Last year it was the Ukrainian president, so I understand the triviality. And the mannnnny more worthy causes to support. But, again, can’t we just have nice things. Taylor and her cat, yakking about friendship bracelets and Easter eggs. It is literally about as much as I can handle at the tail-end of this year.

It’s the Hallmark Christmas movie of magazine covers. There’s a reason Hallmark movies only ever hit the Top Ten in December. It’s because by December, our collective brains are mush. Thanks now also in part to Elf On A Shelf. It is for this one short stint of every year that we can suspend our disbelief. When we know that the woman who leaves the handsome, well-dressed man who adores her - the one with the great job in the city and the very nice apartment, who is also willing to give this all up when he realises that her ardour may be cooling - for the rugged Christmas-tree-bauble-maker from her old hometown is making a truly brilliant life choice.

That’s why when December rolls around we need Taylor Swift and her cat, Timothee and his French interviews. We don’t neccesarily need armour-plated JLo and defs don’t need that addled elf. But hey ho, here’s to the season in all its divisive glory!