This is normally the time of year where I dust off my standard blog post about how to batten down your company’s hatches in preparation for the Christmas holidays.

Instead, however, I find myself irresistibly drawn to talking about my choices of Holiday sustenance from all those years working in retail.

In other words: salesman fuel.

Back then, we didn’t have Red Bull.

For quick energy on the go during hectic holiday shopping hours it always came down to two things:
Caffeine and chocolate

To paraphrase Colin Wilson, author of The Strength to Dream, The imagination is like an engine that can work on many different fuels; but it must be powered. And caffeine, properly used, is a fuel of high potency.

So I’ll present to you my favorite pick-me-ups from those mad and crazy retail December in pictographic form. My own BuzzFeed, pun intended:

Coffee

It’s hard to go wrong with coffee. Double, or triple espresso.

Pot Of Gold

At a store where I used to work, every day all December someone would run across the mall to the drug store to pick up a box or two of Pot Of Gold. It would sit under the front counter, and we’d grab one during the brief lull between one customer and the next.

Quality Street

Of course, Pot Of Gold are cheap, low-end chocolates. All that ended once we discovered Quality Street. If you haven’t tried them, you don’t know what you’re missing.

Chocolate covered coffee beans

Held in reserve for when things really got crazy. Eating these is like when the turbo kicks in. You know you’ve had enough when your heart starts to defibrillate itself.

Naturally if you’re going to spend your work hours all month living on coffee and chocolates you’re going to need these:

Breath mints

That is, of course, if you plan on talking to customers.