The thing I love most about what I do for a living is the opportunity that I get to make people happy. When you are in the celebration business it’s a year-long occurrence but there is something special about Christmas. Of course, we are your last-minute holiday headquarters. Thanks to our society’s penchant for procrastination, we do a lot of business leading up to and ending on Christmas Eve. Thousands will pour into our stores next week looking for that perfect gift that their boss, friend, or loved one won’t return.

As with most retailers this time of year we are prepared for the onslaught, filling the front of our stores with holiday gift sets, gift baskets, and other “gifty items”, that should make all types of holiday shoppers happy.

There is one item though that we offer that many overlook and I want to take this opportunity to remind you of its availability. As our spirit gift sets, wine baskets, and special holiday cocktail items are quickly gobbled up, don’t forget about our excellent selection of cigar gift sets. We offer a wide variety of types and styles, most of which also contain some sort of cigar swag. Whether it be a cutter, lighter, ash tray, or travel humidor, we have you covered.

One of our bestselling sets is the Gurkha Godzilla Pack. It is a nice box that contains eight large gauge cigars, including some greats as Beauty, Beast, 125 Anniversary, and Seduction. This set contains over $80 worth of cigars which we sell for less than $40. If you have a Gurkha fan on your shopping list than look no further than this treasure box. We also offer a Gurkha Extreme gift set which contains several quality cigars inside a travel humidor.

We also offer several Rocky Patel gift sets which include some of his most popular cigars. One of my favorites is the Class of 2013 which contains a wide variety of some of their top sticks of the year. If you are a fan of Oliva Cigars then we have two sets you will love. One is a sampler of their popular Nub cigars that includes a punch and another that has several of their best Oliva cigars along with a cutter.

We also have offerings from Macanudo, Partagas, Brickhouse, Montecristo, Romeo Y Julieta, and Quesada.

With so many cigar gift options there is no reason you can’t bring the cigar lover on your Christmas list a big smile. I would also suggest that you leave one for Santa Claus. After all a person can only eat so many cookies in one night.

Long ashes and happy holidays!

Chris Gwaltney, ABC regional manager and certified tobacconist

Follow me on Twitter @abccigarchris