The 12 Days of Christmas dont officially start for a little under three weeks, so youve got plenty of time to buy your true love all of the items listed in the popular Christmas carol. Whether youve got the budget, though, is another matter entirely.
Just as inflation has bumped up the cost of food, toys and clothing, its having quite an impact on things like pear trees and pipers piping. PNCs Christmas Price Index notes that the overall price for the 12 gifts in the song is up 10.5% this yearthe third highest increase in the 39-year history of the calculations.
All totaled, youll spend $45,523.27 this year if you pick up each of the 12 items mentioned. If youre a stickler for detail and buy everything in the song (saddling your poor paramour with 12 pear trees and more birds than many aviary sanctuaries), youre looking at a bill of $197,071and high odds that youll either be dumped by New Years Eve or viciously attacked by those 42 jerk geese you thought were a good gift idea.
Its the five gold rings that saw the biggest increase this year. The price of those jumped more than 39% as commodity prices spiked. Turtle doves (more birds!) were close behind, with a 33.3% price increase over last year. Higher fertilizer costs mean youll pay an extra 25.8 % for the partridge in a pear tree (that bird, actually, costs the same as last yearas do the swans a swimming).
Theres definitely a glass ceiling in this song, too, as the Lords-a-Leaping saw their value increase 24.2% (and theyre actually, by dollar value, the most expensive item on this years index, coming in at $13,980). Ladies dancing, though, saw just a 10% jump to $8,308.
And lets not even talk about the injustices for maids-a-milking, who havent seen a pay raise since 2009. The line-item cost for those hard-working women? Just $58.
How much have things changed through the years? Shoppers who bought all 12 items back in 1984 would have paid less than half of todays cost, shelling out just $20,069.58. And the index hit an all-time low in 1995, when it dropped to $17,915.25.
Still think inundating your love with fowl and service people is the way to go? (Does your true love even HAVE a cow, much less eight that need to be milked??) Heres how the gift prices break down:
|
Gift |
2022 price |
|
A partridge + a pear tree |
$280.18 (+25.8) |
|
2 turtle doves |
$600 (+33.3%) |
|
3 French hens |
$318.75 (+25%) |
|
4 calling birds |
$599.96 (unch) |
|
5 gold rings |
$1,245 (+39.1%) |
|
6 geese |
$720 (+9.1%) |
|
7 swans |
$13,124.93 (unch) |
|
8 maids-a-milking |
$58 (unch) |
|
9 ladies dancing |
$8,308.12 (+10%) |
|
10 lords-a-leaping |
$13,980 (+24.2%) |
|
11 pipers |
$3,021.40 (+2.6%) |
|
12 drummers |
$3,266.93 (+2.6%) |
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