In the distributed setting, the only existing constructions of \textit{sparse skeletons}, (i.e., subgraphs with $O(n)$ edges) either use randomization or large messages, or require $Ω(D)$ time, where $D$ is the hop-diameter of the input graph $G$. We devise the first deterministic distributed algorithm in the CONGEST model (i.e., uses small messages) for constructing linear-size skeletons in time $2^{O(\sqrt{{\log n}\cdot{\log{\log n}}})}$. We can also compute a linear-size spanner with stretch $polylog(n)$ in low deterministic polynomial time, i.e., $O(n^ρ)$ for an arbitrarily small constant $ρ>0$, in the CONGEST model. Yet another algorithm that we devise runs in $O({\log n})^{κ-1}$ time, for a parameter $κ=1,2,\dots,$ and constructs an $O({\log n})^{κ-1}$ spanner with $O(n^{1+1/κ})$ edges. All our distributed algorithms are lightweight from the computational perspective, i.e., none of them employs any heavy computations.