The Festival of Lights parade is set to illuminate downtown once again this December, and each year, the last fixture of the procession is Santa’s sleigh.

But this year, were it not for Dave Bullock, Santa would be walking.The parade, which is in its 28th year, features floats from local businesses and organizations and runs down Tejon Street, between St. Vrain Street and Vermijo Avenue. Bullock became directly involved in the event four years ago, when he was asked to assemble a parade entry for the United States Olympic Committee, where he has worked for 34 years. At the beginning of 2011, Bullock joined the festival’s board of directors — and their quest for Santa’s sleigh.For the past two and half decades, Santa’s Workshop at the North Pole, in Cascade, has provided the sleigh for the parade. However, weather complications and staffing shortages have recently become obstacles for the Workshop.”It’s a tough time of the year for us. We’re so busy,” says Tom Haggard, the North Pole’s owner. “It was a lot of fun for a long time, but it takes a toll on us.”This December, Santa’s sleigh will not be from the North Pole, and the Festival of Lights has had to scramble to come up with a replacement. “It was pretty obvious the board was just waiting for someone to take this project and run with it,” Bullock says.So, Bullock decided to do just that. He was excited to take on the project, as it was “one of those things that is really in my line of work.” The jack-of-all-trades restores classic cars as a hobby, but had never built anything like a sleigh before. Bullock was undaunted.”I love to try everything, I don’t care what it is,” he says. “If it has something to do with thinking and creating with my hands, I love it. It’s one of those fascinations.”The board allowed Bullock a $10,000 budget (to be financed through fundraising) for the entire project, which includes three components — the sleigh, its reindeer and a trailer to carry it all. He started work in March.Wishing to make the project his own, Bullock chose to approach it with an intense attention to detail and committment to quality and authenticity.”My intent is to create something that looks like it could really function,” he says. “I want this thing to be solid and sturdy, to last many years for the Festival of Lights.”After painstaking research, Bullock ordered flying reindeer statues from England, as he was drawn to their “lifelike and realistic” qualities. He ordered a custom-made, flat-bed trailer from a company in New Mexico — with wheels under the deck so he can skirt it and “hide the entire fact that it’s a trailer.”Keeping his desire for authenticity in mind, Bullock struggled for weeks to develop a satisfactory design for his sleigh. Finally, his creativity was sparked by a sleigh he saw in an animated Christmas movie. Bullock was drawn to the concept because it blended “sleek and cool” attributes with an “old and traditional” character.”It just really spoke to me,” he says.The reindeer and trailer have consumed almost 70 percent of his budget, so Bullock has had to scrounge for most of his materials for the sleigh — something the self-described pack-rat is “very adept at doing.” He’s scavenged many items from the discarded remains of rennovation projects at the USOC.With inspiration and materials in hand, Bullock just had to find a way to put it all together. His strategy: “I’m making it up as I go along.”Thus far, he has devised an ingenious array of make-shift solutions. A frame constructed of scrap metal from disassembled scaffolding. Runners built from chain-link fence posts. Sides made out of wood from old packing crates. Moldings formed out of modified PVC piping. Seat cushions from gymnastics crash-pad foam. And reindeer-harness trimmings from an old fur coat — just to name a few.Bullock thinks his sleigh is about 50 percent complete. He has come a long way, but knows he still has far to go. That immovable December 1 deadline looms in the distance. He is confident he’ll make it, though.”I can see the finished product,” he says. “I know where I’m going, or where I want to go. A lot of the time, I just don’t know how I’m going to get there. But that’s part of the game.”It’s the game that spurs him on. Fittingly, the Olympic games play on the TV in the background as he works. He is employed by the USOC, but aside from that obvious connection, Bullock relates to those athletes on a deeper level. For him, this project is about the challenge. About setting the bar high and seeing if he can attain the standard.”I’m very much like a track athlete running hurdles,” says Bullock. “I got over one, and now I’ve got another one to go. Eventually, I’m going to get to the end of the race and be able to look back and say, ‘I did it. I got over all those hurdles.’ That’s where the drive comes from.”This was more to me than just a job. There is no pay involved. That’s not what it’s about. The pay is going to be December 1, when I roll it onto Tejon Street.”

Lentils Photo by stock.xchnge.com