He set up 225 inflatable Christmas decorations outside his home, then it snowed a foot

LEICESTER, Mass. — Maintaining one of the largest private Christmas displays in the state is hard work.

"You get on your hands and knees and you just start digging them out," said Scott Weikel, homeowner. "It takes a lot physically and mentally out of me."

Especially when Mother Nature dumps more than a foot of heavy, wet snow on all your inflatable decorations just a couple of days after setting up.

"I’ve always known a major snowstorm would cripple us down here.. and it was my worst nightmare come true," he said.

Digging out 225 deflated decorations would've been days of back-breaking work for Scott Weikel. But after a friend made a call Monday, he got some unexpected help.

"I was out here digging them out exhausted because I was up for 24 hours snow-blowing trying to keep the yard clean, and then a car showed up, you know were here to help. ‘No, no. I’m all set.’ And then thing you know another car, and then it was the Leicester High football team," he said.

"None of us were forced to do it. We just wanted to do it, to, like, help out," Mercier said.

About a dozen Leicester High football players, coaches and some family members spent more than an hour unearthing the decorations.

"Honestly, it was a blast digging out the inflatables. As you slowly – you didn’t know what you were digging out and as you were digging around they would slowly start filling up with air, and some were two feet high some were 25 feet high," Griffiths said.

The undefeated football team on their way to the Super Bowl Saturday wasn't too busy to help out a complete stranger and, in effect, the whole community.

"I used to go there as a kid so I figured it would be cool for all the younger kids to go see all the Christmas lights, get a hot chocolate, the whole deal," Barbato said.

By now, Weikel has a few more inches to clean up, but he says the team did the brunt of the work and he couldn't be more proud of these young men.

"They’re a great football team – obviously they’re undefeated – but more importantly in life, they were good human beings," Weikel said.

Weikel hopes to be done setting up this display by the end of the week. He says he can get as many as 3,000 visitors on any Saturday before Christmas. As for the football team, they'll be playing at Gillette Stadium on Saturday.

Cox Media Group