Family Photo

Here is the result of many many attempts to take a family photo where all family members have their eyes open and are looking in the general direction of the camera. An impossible task made even more challenging by the photographer, Roger Lyons, who must adhere to the photo-journalist style of clicking away spontaneously, never letting on to his subjects exactly when they are being photographed. This annual photo-on-the-couch is a Lyons family tradition, taken as seriously as the eating-the-pointy-end-of-the-pie-last tradition and being a fanatic Spurs fan. You can see that Julia is holding last year's photo in a frame, and in last year's photo she's holding the previous year's photo, and on and on so that if you had a powerful enough magnifying glass you could look back through history and see the very first Lyons, sitting alone on a rock or whatever passed for a sofa back then, hands empty.

We have a lot of Thanksgiving traditions. Everyone has to cook something, even people who aren't good cooks, like me and Roan. In previous years I've tried to dodge this rule by washing dishes, but that came to an end when I broke a really nice dish. I've tried to designate myself as a floater - a sous chef for anyone who finds themselves pressed for time and needs assistance - but no one was eager to let me mess up their dish. I've made the salad, because lets face it, no one eats the salad at Thanksgiving. But this year, with 6 solid months of pureeing baby food under my belt, I found the inspiration and courage to cook something that other people ate.

The kitchen is chaotic on Thanksgiving, like an episode of Iron Chef with everyone dashing around with exotic kitchen equipment wondering where the salt went, or who moved the oil, or where their recipe is. The Robot responded to all the excitement by running endless circles around the center island, and Julia thought he was chasing her, or maybe she was chasing him; either way you can picture the scene: armed adults and manic children rushing around, narrowly avoiding catastrophe. It was fabulous.

In keeping with tradition:

• Jay fell asleep on the couch.

• Andrew gave a speech that made everyone cry.

• Alisha and Roger had a heated debate about Starbucks.

And Roan experienced his first sugar high. He mooched sweets so quickly and from such disparate sources that we had no idea how much he'd eaten until we noticed him sprinting around the kitchen at top speed, literally bouncing off the cabinets.

Here's the whole crew: