{"id":13518,"date":"2014-10-25T07:42:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-25T13:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/utah-town-brings-halloween-and-christmas-to-sick-little-boy\/"},"modified":"2014-10-27T07:25:10","modified_gmt":"2014-10-27T13:25:10","slug":"utah-town-brings-halloween-and-christmas-to-sick-little-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/utah-town-brings-halloween-and-christmas-to-sick-little-boy\/","title":{"rendered":"Utah Town Brings Halloween and Christmas to Sick Little Boy"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a close-knit Utah town where time has become a precious commodity for one family, the Christmas<\/a> lights<\/a> are already up and Halloween<\/a> is in full swing 10 days early.<\/p>\n

The town of West Jordan has come together to ensure that a 4-year-old boy with only a short time to live gets to make the most of it. Ethan Van Leuven has been battling acute lymphoblastic leukemia for more than half of his life, and doctors have declared that his illness is no longer treatable.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the doctors basically said, he\u2019s got two days to a couple of weeks left to live, and so that\u2019s when we thought we would make the most of the last days he has remaining with us,\u201d Ethan\u2019s father, Merrill Van Leuven, told Joe Fryer on TODAY Friday.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday night, the community of West Jordan celebrated Halloween<\/a> 10 days early as Ethan put on his Superman costume and went trick-or-treating. Two days later, the town held a parade in honor of Ethan\u2019s fifth birthday, one month before the actual day.<\/p>\n

\u201cEthan\u2019s having a blast,\u201d his mother, Jennifer Van Leuven, told Fryer. \u201cIt\u2019s so much fun to watch his face light up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The week of holidays will continue on Friday when the community celebrates Christmas<\/a> Eve, with everyone on the block putting up Christmas<\/a> decorations<\/a>. A local radio<\/a> station is even switching their format to Christmas<\/a> music for the day. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that it is a real tough time for them,\u201d one neighbor told Fryer. \u201cWe want to be there for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family and community are aiming to make every moment special for Ethan in his final days. On Saturday, they will celebrate Christmas<\/a>, Ethan\u2019s favorite holiday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really difficult time, but this just makes it a little bit easier just to see how many people love<\/a> and support,\u201d Jennifer said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a close-knit Utah town where time has become a precious commodity for one family, the Christmas lights are already up and Halloween is in full swing 10 days early. The town of West Jordan has come together to ensure that a 4-year-old boy with only a short time to live gets to make the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","iawp_total_views":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-13518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christmas-news","tag-external-christmas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}