The glow of a birthday cake\u2019s candles showed a 5-year-old boy\u2019s eyes glistening while fighting back tears as one by one, his family members shared with the birthday boy what they love about him as part of their heartwarming tradition.<\/p>\n
Matias Gates\u2019 touching reaction to the sweet tradition captured the hearts of Internet users as video of the birthday celebration reached millions of views. The boy\u2019s mother, Alexis Gate, said she\u2019s intentional about letting her three children know how valued they are.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s one thing to let someone know their love, but it’s something else to make them feel it,\u201d the San Diego mother said.<\/p>\n
As part of the family\u2019s new birthday tradition, each relative shares why they love the birthday honoree and then places a lit candle on the cake.<\/p>\n
The expressions included well wishes, hope for the young boy\u2019s dreams to come true and blessings of many more birthdays to come. Although they all ranged in uniqueness brought upon by individual family members, they were all filled with pure love.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think, like having the support of all of our family there to pour that into him was so special and meaningful,\u201d Alexis Gates said.<\/p>\n
Matias Gates, who is the middle child in his family, has taken much enjoyment in reliving the special moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I watch it, it almost made me cry,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause it’s so special about my family.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a sentiment his mother shares.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just brings tears to his eyes to this day and it’s so cute,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I think it’s very special to have those moments and be able to watch them over.\u201d<\/p>\n
The video flooded Alexis Gates\u2019 post with hundreds of comments from Internet users who shared that it brought them to tears. The video also received much applause for the heartfelt tradition and some expressed that it inspired them to adopt the tradition themselves. It\u2019s a feat that the Gates family has taken with honor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope to continue to possibly inspire people to speak to their kids that way and their family, and to be loved out loud, because it’s truly beautiful,\u201d Alexis said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The glow of a birthday cake\u2019s candles showed a 5-year-old boy\u2019s eyes glistening while fighting back tears as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49,74],"class_list":["post-451815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-san-diego"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}