Just after Valentine’s Day I was asked by Mrs. Claus to deliver some cookies to a legendary elf they call Big Sled Ted.
I had never heard of him.
But he’s a favorite of Mrs. Claus and occasionally she likes to give Ted special cookies that she makes just for him. In fact, it was those cookies that first caught my attention. They were not Mrs. Claus’ usual cookies. They were sugar cookies, sure, but they were the thickest and largest sugar cookies I had ever seen in my life.
And that’s the thing about Big Sled Ted. Everything is huge with that guy.
He kind of works all over the North Pole because he is a talented elf with many unusual attributes. I cannot believe I had not heard about him before. This time of year he works mostly in the Sleigh Department, where they are just now building the new sleigh Santa will use for his flight this year.
The Sleigh Department is kind of a hush-hush facility at the North Pole. Getting in there – at least to the part of the building where the sleigh is actually built – is a little difficult. You actually have to have a special pass to get in there.
Mrs. Claus’ cookies for Big Sled Ted were my ticket in the place.
The Sleigh Department looks as you would suppose. It is a big cavernous warehouse with high ceilings and a cold concrete floor. There are tools and sawdust everywhere – a combination of a wood workshop and kind of a vehicle repair facility. Big, big place.
But where I walked in and saw Big Sled Ted for the first time it took my breath away. I had never seen such a huge elf in all my life.
Ted is over 7 feet tall.
He has massive features. He is broad shouldered, has long thick arms and feet that have to be seen to be believed. And hands! My gosh, I’ve never seen such massive paws in all my life.
In fact, as I walked in Big Sled Ted was a picture of concentration. He was trying to peel a sticker with those big hands of his and he could barely hold the little thing. He had it very close to his face, his brow furrowed, and his tongue slightly sticking out between his lips.
As I looked way up at him in wonder, holding these massive Mrs. Claus cookies that suddenly didn’t seem to be so big, he said: “Oooh, I hate these things. Can you give me a hand?”
His voice was soft. His manner was gentle. Everything about him seemed to contrast against his gargantuan presence.
Putting the cookies down I took the sticker and peeled it. “Hey, you did that fast, Miss Elf,” he said. “I wish I had your deft touch.”
What an amazing guy. I liked him instantly and I began to wonder how I could ever miss an elf like Big Sled Ted. The sticker said “Inspected by BST”. Ted took the tiny sticker and stuck it like little pin on the underside of a massive model of Santa’s new sleigh.
Now, to understand this you need to understand a little about how Santa’s sleigh gets put together every year.
Once a design is settled on engineers and craftsmen build a supersize model of the sleigh.
I mean, Santa’s actual sleigh, when you see it for the first time, is always bigger than you expect. When you see the real sleigh with nine reindeer hitched to it the almost universal reaction is: “That thing will never fit on my roof.”
Building that real sleigh means first building an “exploded” version of it. Usually the first model of Santa’s sleigh is five times what the sleigh will actually be. They do this supersized model of the sleigh in great detail. The “Big Sled”, as they call it, never actually flies. It is made so that each special section of the sleigh gets crafted perfectly, studied thoroughly, and engineered with precision. By building it in a huge model the makers of the sleigh understand everything about it with the sleigh they make that Santa will actually fly.
So when I walked into the Sleigh Barn and saw this huge sleigh it was kind of like looking at Noah’s Ark. It’s just huge. And huge is what Big Sled Ted does. He spends most of his time in the first part of the year helping with the Big Sled because his size makes him useful in the task.
Yes, the place has lots of pullies and even small cranes to do heavy lifting but honestly Big Sled Ted is so tall and powerful he gets big stuff handled far faster.
He’s from Sweden. The world doesn’t have a lot of 7-foot Swedes but Ted is one of them. Some call him the Tall Swede. They tell me he’s known all over the North Pole for his powerful abilities.
When the big 30 foot Christmas tree goes up at the North Pole Events Center it’s Big Sled Ted who always puts up the star. He’s the only elf brave enough to get on a ladder to do it.
Big Sled Ted gets called upon for big projects all the time. The Wrapping Department calls on Ted whenever they have to move their big machines. The North Pole Post Office does the same. The Snow Removal Department at the Sleigh Port has special supersized shovels that only Ted is strong enough to handle. His abilities to quickly clear massive amounts of snow are legendary.
They call him Big Sled Ted because he can lift that huge working model of Santa’s Sleigh with one arm. And Santa’s actual sleigh is no challenge to him whatsoever.
There is a famous picture hanging up in the offices of the Research and Development Department that shows Big Ted Sled holding up Santa’s sleigh with Santa in it – and he’s holding up the sleigh Grinch-style, high over his head. Santa, you can tell, is laughing in the picture.
Santa, as you know, is no small man either. But he’s puny next to Big Sled Ted.
Mrs. Claus has needs for Big Sled Ted’s talents too. Like me, the first time she met Ted she was intimidated by him. But he had come to help decorate for the Thanksgiving Dinner and he got there early.
The tables weren’t even up and Mrs. Claus was a little upset.
But Big Sled Ted, in his soft voice, told Mrs. Claus not to worry.
By himself he got all those tables set up within five minutes. Mrs. Claus had never seen an elf so concerned about solving a problem. She was immediately impressed with Big Sled Ted.
And that’s what you feel when you start talking to the guy.
He’s so big hearted and so gentle and so well meaning you soon forget that he is a giant. You realize that within him beats the heart of a true elf.
As I got to talking to him I asked him if his nickname of “Big Sled Ted” bothered him.
He smiled and said, “No. I love my name. No other elf has a name like mine. It makes me feel special.”
That’s the other thing about Big Ted, or, “my Teddy”, as Mrs. Claus likes to call him. He sees only good in everything.
A lot of people, when they see someone so large, worry about what could happen if that person gets mad. And I’m not going to lie. I thought that about Big Sled Ted the first time I saw him.
I feel bad about that now.
Ted wouldn’t hurt anyone. You know that within seconds.
That big heart melts you.
It teaches you something about how to be an elf too. An elf can be really tall and big, like Ted, or short and slight, like me.
An elf’s size doesn’t matter.
Unless you’re talking about the heart.
