A Christmas tradition in Parade’s family is to gather in a big unruly mob a couple of weeks before the big day and get a photo taken to be included in the Christmas cards sent out that year.

It’s not a professional shoot, either. Someone’s phone is usually placed precariously on two stacked boxes or a wobbly shelf, where it invariably falls over just at the moment when the picture is about to be taken.

Organising three households to be in the one spot at the one time shouldn’t be that hard, but it always seems to require the sort of planning that goes into a celebrity wedding.

And then when everyone is organised and the photo is ready to be taken, there’s always one child who is in a bad mood and has to be coaxed into doing anything but scowling and always one adult who starts talking right when the flash goes off.

No-one ever seems to be able to work out where they should be standing and little argument spot-fires flare up while the tall people and the short people shift positions and the kids try to stay close to their favoured big person.

Still, Parade’s family persists. And why? Because the photos, put together, provide a record of the years: children getting taller, adult hair getting whiter, a baby suddenly appearing.

If you flick through them, you can see a decade disappear in a blink or two of your eye.

It puts Parade in mind of John Lennon: “Another year over. And a new one just begun.”

HOW scary were Aussie cricketers in the 1970s?

Parade sat wide-eyed through the first part of an Ashes documentary on TV this week as he absorbed the wild hair, big moustaches and crazy eyes of Ian Chappell’s 1974-75 Aussie side.

The best line of the episode came from Damien Fleming, who said the players of that side looked like the cast of Anchorman.

Parade would rather face Will Ferrell’s character Ron Burgundy from Anchorman than Jeff Thomson - who, even now, looks downright terrifying.