Woman creates giant snowman with hundreds of donated plastic milk jugs

Melissa Morgado loves craft projects and she loves decorating her yard for the holidays. She had an idea in 2022 to create something big and magical for her front yard in Somerset, Massachusetts: an unmeltable snowman made of plastic milk jugs. While the project couldn’t be finished last year, the devoted mom of two refused to give up on her idea.

After a week of work, Morgado introduced the world to Jughead back in November — all 12 feet of him! Here’s one of her Facebook posts showing the project off.

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The idea for Jughead came to Morgado last year after she wanted to add another large inflatable Christmas decoration to her front yard; however, her husband vetoed the idea. He also liked giving her a hard time about all of her crafting projects.

“It started because my husband is always saying, ‘You do a lot of projects.’ and is always teasing me about it,” she told The Herald News. “And I told him to stop teasing, or I’m going to do something big. So this is what will happen because I got shut off buying more inflatables for the front yard.”

True to her word, Morgado started collecting milk jugs from around town and began to build a snowman, using a glue gun as her primary tool. Unfortunately, a snowstorm brought it down a few days before Christmas. She abandoned the project, but vowed to try again this year.

Months ago, Morgado put the call out for neighbors and friends for milk jugs. The community came together to donate materials, including wood for the base and glue sticks. As the collection grew, she and her husband began to build a better snowman, complete with a scarf made of blankets, a nose made with a cone, and a hat of plywood, pleather, fencing, and plywood. She even made a corncob pipe from a pool noodle, a plant insert and cellophane sheets.

She even added interior lights during the construction for an extra festive touch, both to the inside of the snowman and the pipe.

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“There’s about 768 jugs. I believe he stands 11 and a half feet tall and seven feet across,” Morgado told 10 WJAR. “Everything is hot glued and we made a rope between every jug handle so that if something disastrous happened, I wasn’t chasing them across the town again.”

So far, Jughead has withstood the weather and people from all over the community are stopping by to enjoy Morgado’s work, making her holiday season more special.

“I got to see some kids take their picture with them last night and I thought my heart would burst,” she shared on a Nov. 17 Facebook post. “I hope that they have those memories for years to come; their excitement was beautiful. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping with Jughead.”

To see more pictures and follow Jughead’s holiday season, head to his official Facebook page and get a dash of holiday joy.

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