Our guess could go on forever, but ...

... it can't be the long exposure issue as both images are sharp. It's more likely two shutter releases. Perhaps the flash failed on the first and the worked on the second. If everyone held real still with only a few small movements then this type of result could occur.

Flashbulbs were always somewhat unreliable. BTW, there seems to be an unused one just behind Mr. Landis. It's the gas filled type rather than foil. These produced shorter flash durations.

My interpretation: Note that Collins set the camera to capture both the sunlit outdoors and the flash-lit indoors.

1) Long shutter opening for the natural light outside, say 1/2 second or 1 second or whatever, also gets a faint image of the people indoors.

2) Flash inside gets a clear instantaneous image of the interior.

She asked everyone to hold still which they did with varying degrees of success. The non-moving subjects (table, food, dishes) show none of the ghosting.

Unless you want the boy to spill the cranberries. The cacophony most likely subsided once the food passed the lips and the tongue look out stomach here it comes,

My mother-in-law has a picture from a newspaper in West Virginia around 1953 that shows her and a bunch of other kids seated around a Thanksgiving table with turkey and all the trimmings. The backstory is that her parents knew someone from the newspaper who wanted to write a feature article about Thanksgiving dinner. So the newspeople and photographer came over with a complete meal and spread it out on the family dining table, then all the kids sat there looking cute, the photographer snapped the picture, and they took away all the food. The poor kids never got to eat that scrumptious meal! (They did have a proper Thanksgiving dinner a couple days later on Thanksgiving.)

It's a bit hard to figure out exactly what happened with this one. My best guess is that the shutter was set to a moderately slow speed and there were multiple flash units used, with one fired with a bit of a delay. This left some time for movement between the two flashes, hence the two ears, doubled arms, etc.

This family seemed to be having cranberry sauce the same as I had growing up in the 60s. Straight from the can.

Tiny little ear with a gold earring is cohabiting on Mrs Landis head with her ear with the diamonds?

[It's the same ear and the same pearl earring. - Dave]

... posed for Picasso.

Do we suppose that Marjory Collins was invited to dinner?

Getting the evil eye x 3. No pie for you, Louis ...

This immediately brought to mind Norman Rockwell's painting, "Freedom from Want" -- one of my favorites.

grow an additional ear, since the last photograph?

WARDROBE!!

... appears to be among those who never know what time it is!

I see a food fight between the kid and the old man breaking out any minute now.
I bet the old man starts it.

My mamaw (maternal grandmother) had those same tumblers. Hers were cranberry red. Or maybe it was more like ruby red. And she served the cranberry sauce in the cylindrical shape, too. But she sliced it into discs. I still dream of her cornbread dressing with giblet gravy, and her sweet potato casserole. And being that my grandparents lived in Louisiana, it was warm on Thanksgiving and we children ate while sitting out on the terrace where Mamaw had a few lacy white wrought-iron tables with matching chairs. Each of us kids got our own ice-cold Coke in the small bottle. Those tumblers did not go outside.

needs a tray too, put his roll on the tablecloth, sheesh