Kat Hovnanian joined some 150 members of her far-flung family at her aunt's home in Red Bank for their annual Thanksgiving dinner and waited for the proceedings to begin.
They would carry on the tradition: Her aunt would cook up a storm. They would gather around a long table filled with food. One of the young cousins would read a poem. They would recite a family prayer in Armenian. And then they would eat.
"It's honestly very straightforward," Hovnanian, 22, said. "There's nothing we do that's out of the ordinary. This year, it's just shocking that the poem ended and, like, the table just came crashing down."
Hovnanian's Instagram video of the Thanksgiving feast going down in a heap is going viral, picked up by U.S. and international news sites alike. By 2 p.m. on Saturday, it had 325,000 likes and more than 5,000 comments. And it was the Jersey Shore's latest contribution to social media.
The video is less than 10 seconds long, but it managed to tell a story that had the emotional weight of a 30-minute sitcom or, as Hovnanian put it, a "cringy Hallmark movie."
Coldplay kiss cam video: Belmar woman who filmed viral hit reveals how it all happened
Hovnanian in an interview with the Asbury Park Press filled in the details. She said her aunt spent a week preparing for Thanksgiving, cooking turkey, ham, steak, lasagna, salads, sweet potatoes and more, then setting them out in a buffet on a long table covered by a white table cloth.
Hovnanian and other family members gathered around and took out their phones to record the pre-meal festivities. The video clip picks up with Hovnanian's 12-year-old cousin finishing a poem and the family clapping and calling out "Bravo!"
In a beat, the table behind her cousin collapsed, the family gasps, Hovnanian pans out to catch her aunt − the aunt who just spent the past week cooking the whole spread − cover her mouth in horror, as a faint laugh can be heard.
"I'm shocked that I did this, but I turned my camera to film her (aunt's) reaction, and I zoomed out and took like a pan out view of what was happening, and I guess this was kind of subconscious − I didn't even think this was going to be posted anywhere − but I was just like holy [expletive] I cannot believe this just happened," Hovnanian said.
The family rushed in to salvage what they could. The men dismantled the table and put it away. Others threw out food that had glass and porcelain pieces. Kat called her cousins who were still on the way, jokingly telling them they might want to pick up pizza.
But Hovnanian said the turkey and steak made it unscathed, and her aunt had more food in the kitchen.
"When everyone sat down, it was just kind of silent," she said. "Everyone got their plates, but instead of having 10 pieces of turkey, everyone had one. Everyone knew we couldn't be overeating because there might not be enough left to feed this humongous family. So we all sat down. It was delicious."
The family came to the conclusion that no one was at fault. Nobody bumped the table. A dog in the background is securely in its owners arms. In the end, they decided, the food's distribution was too heavy for the table to bear.
With her aunt beginning to laugh again, Hovnanian began to compare videos with other family members and decided they need to post it for posterity's sake. Kat, who was the only one to capture her aunt's reaction, had a feeling that it would go viral.
It would strike a chord with anyone trying to have a perfect holiday and falling short, which is pretty much everyone. Hovnanian put it on her Instagram account and had 100,000 views in the first 40 minutes.
"Happy Thanksgiving," she wrote in the caption, "from my family to yours!"
Michael L. Diamond is a business reporter at the Asbury Park Press. He has been writing about the New Jersey economy and health care industry since 1999. He can be reached at [email protected].
732-483-4611
Service Areas
