In Minnesota, a family in the small town of Stillwater started what they hope is a new Christmas tradition: The family banded together and built a snow fort using a John Deere tractor.

Stephen Shealy organized his family and built a snow fort using snow from recent snowstorms that have blanketed the area. The snow fort has both an entrance and an exit, caverns and a narrow tunnel that connects the various passages together. Shealy commissioned his brother-in-law to plow all the snow his family needed to construct the fort.

Shealy told the local NBC affiliate that he hoped the snow fort would last at least until the spring: "This will probably be around until May. We'll see, we'll see what happens." Shealy's enthusiasm for the project is a result of his southern upbringing in winter-less Georgia, where he lives still. Adam Fink, one of Shealy's brothers-in-law, is an engineer by trade and drafted an extensive plan for the snow fort and says that the snow fort was a fun project for the family to work on together.

Shealy jokingly asserts that he is "the shovel," while Fink "is the brains" of the project. The family says that the snow fort serves as a nice break from the holidays: "When we get tired of each other we come out here and dig snow," one relative declared.