dinner or early bed time?

As we sat down to dinner tonight, I hear the usual rumbling of complaints (i.e. Turkey again?!  Can I just have a fruit instead of corn?!  We had this two days ago?!)  The complaints were quickly put to rest and we all started eating.  Brad and I were onto seconds and the boys were still staring at their plates.  I said, "Listen.  You can sit here and eat this yummy food or you can go to bed.  Period!"  Carson looks at the clock, sees it is only 6:30 pm, two hours before bed time, frowns and starts eating.  Hunter however, says in a calm, non-confrontational voice, "I'm tired.  I'm going to bed.  Good night."  He walks over to both Brad and I, gives us a kiss and goes to his room.

SERIOUS?!  Thinking to ourselves, "this won't last", we say "Ok, good night.  Go brush your teeth and put jammies on."  15 minutes later, Brad walks into his room and sure enough, he is in jammies, tucked in to bed and eyes closed.  

How do you make a kid eat dinner that will gladly choose to go to bed 2 hours early rather than eat something he doesn't want to eat?!