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As we head closer and closer to the big event of the holiday season, a story from the fall has made the rounds again on Twitter and the Facebook Watch page Dispatches from the Middle, and it paints perfectly a picture of what the holiday season should be all about.
Brody Allen, a two-year-old boy from the suburbs of Cincinnati, was diagnosed with a brain tumor earlier this year. His parents, Shilo and Todd, learned that their little boy had had the tumor since birth, an extremely rare condition that is also untreatable. In August, they were informed that their son would not make it more than two more months.
So, the family decided to celebrate Christmas with Brody early, putting up their tree and decorating their house in September. "In his mind it is just Christmas," Brody's sister McKenzie told The New York Times. "He woke up one day and the Christmas tree was out. He doesn't know it isn't really Christmas. He is just enjoying it."
That was likely partly because the Allen's entire neighborhood followed suit.
All throughout the streets of Colerain Township, where the family lives, houses were decked out with lights and inflatable Santa Clauses, as if it were already December. "You come at night and the whole street is, like, lit up, and it's amazing to know that it's all for Brody," Shilo Allen said.
The town even threw the boy a parade. They also organized fundraisers and spaghetti dinners. A local radio station even played Christmas songs--anything to brighten the youngster's spirits and lighten his family's load.
Soon, word spread and Christmas cards began pouring in from every corner of the globe--so many that the mail carriers had to deliver them by truck.
On social media, people were moved by this show of Christmas spirit--and, of course, by the little boy who inspired it all:
Brody passed away a short month later, on October 19, 2018, but it seems like the mark he made on his community is not soon to be forgotten!
H/T New York Times, CBS News