.png?trim=0,0,0,0&width=1200&height=800&crop=1200:800&w=696&resize=696,0&ssl=1 "Meet Parker the snowman: The frosty 20-foot giant delighting one small town")
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Massachusetts has a new icon and while he may be frosty in nature, he’s melting hearts all over the state.
Meet Parker, a towering 20-foot snowman in the town of Shirley, built by “snowman artist” Eric Aalerud after January’s massive snowstorm.
Parker, named after the road where he stands in the front yard of the Aalerud family home, has become a local landmark, with traffic backing up as visitors stop to snap photos with him.
And he’s one impressive sight – stretching 21 feet wide with eyes made from battery-powered LED lights in circles, a trash barrel-plywood hat, and tree-branch arms strung with lights.
“I feel like this time of year, there’s not a lot going on. It’s dark early, it’s gray, so it’s something fun for people to see, stop at, take a picture,” Katie Aalerud, Eric’s wife, told NBC Boston.
She described her husband’s meticulous process for building the snowman.
“It takes skill,” she said. “The snowblower, to start, he puts a piece of wood in there, he gets snow, all of this snow is gone because he shovels it all that way. Climbs up on a ladder in the back and uses a shovel to kind of dig out the layers, adds water to freeze everything. It’s a process.”
It’s not Eric Aalerud’s first snowman creation, either. The electrician built a slightly smaller version last year with one big difference – the eye color. “It could have just been me, but I think the red looked creepy, so he made the switch to blue. It’s more natural. I think it looks much better,” Katie said.
Parker has become a local celebrity with dozens of pictures and posts about him online.
“Forget the groundhog shadow. Spring will be determined by whenever Frosty here melts away,” one person wrote on Facebook.
“When life gives you snow, make snowmen,” another added.
The Aaleruds switch the batteries in Parker’s lights every other week, keeping the towering snowman bright for all to enjoy – especially their 1-year-old daughter.
Katie hopes Parker will become an annual tradition – and joked that she is pushing for a bigger snowman next year. Last year’s snowman lasted until the end of March, and the family hopes Parker might stick around even longer.