Latter-day Saint Life

Watch: The Beautiful Thing a Little Boy with Brain Cancer Did with an Unexpected Gift

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After Cameron was diagnosed with a brain tumor, his family faced the holidays with the bitter realization this might be Cameron's last Christmas. But a knock at the door brought unexpected joy.

"I remember Christmas Eve 2005, we were sitting in the front room together as a family and then there was a knock on the front door and on the porch were two Christmas Jars and a copy of the book Christmas Jars," Cameron's father shares in a BYUtv video. The tradition of Christmas Jars is simple. Place an empty jar on your kitchen counter or desk at work, wherever you will see it often. Every day, each family member or coworker drops their spare change into the jar. When Christmas arrives, carefully select someone who might benefit from some extra love during the holidays. 

A letter accompanied Cameron's Christmas Jar, and his mom explains, "The letter talked about how they knew that he was struggling and that this money was for Cameron to do what he wanted to do."

Cameron knew what he wanted to spend the money on—toys for the hospital playroom on the cancer floor, something that has blessed others for years to come.

"I am very proud to be his sister, to have like that role model of someone to look up to who wants to give when he's sick," Cameron's sister says.

"The giving goes way beyond the immediate gift," Cameron's father says. "It goes on for years and years and over a decade later it is still touching people's lives. And that's what it's all about, and that's what Cameron wanted."

And that's the purpose of Christmas Jars. As Jason F. Wright, the bestselling Latter-day Saint author who started the movement with hisbook Christmas Jars, explains, “Knowing that someone is putting in their change, consecrating a little bit of themselves every day to you, all year long, is an incredibly powerful notion."


Christmas Jars is getting a new chapter with the release of a holiday movie! The movie adaption of the book hitstheaters on November 4th in a special event presented by BYUtv

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