Looking for a Christmas gift for that special someone in your life? This is fun.
Curious as to what it would cost to purchase every item on the ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ list this year?
For 27 years, PNC Wealth Management has come up with a Christmas Price Index; checking with jewelry stores, dance companies, pet stores and has prepared a list of costs to purchase the 364 items contained in the holiday song. With an increase of 10.8% over last year, we would need to pay nearly $100,000 to fulfill the list. If purchasing all the items at $96,824 is too costly, how about if you only purchase one of each of the items – 1 drummer vs 12 drummers, you could drop the cost to $23,439 or only a 9.2% increase from last year.
The surge in the price of gold sent the 5 golden rings up a whopping 30% to $650. But the real surge for 2010 came in the bird category. Claiming availability issues in addition to care and feeding costs sent the 2 turtle doves soaring by 78% and the 3 French hens were up 233% according to PNC. Costs they are a-rising.
Here’s the total price list as provided by PNC Wealth Management for the ‘The 23 Days of Christmas’ items:
• Partridge, $12 (last year: $10)
• Pear Tree, $150 (last year: same)
• Two Turtle Doves, $100 (last year: $56)
• Three French Hens, $150 (last year: $45)
• Four Calling Birds (canaries), $600 (last year: same)
• Five Gold Rings, $650 (last year: $500)
• Six Geese a-Laying, $150 (last year: same)
• Seven Swans a-Swimming, $5,600 (last year: $5,250)
• Eight Maids a-Milking, $58 (last year: same)
• Nine Ladies Dancing (per performance), $6,294 (last year: $5,473)
• 10 Lords a-Leaping (per performance), $4,767 (last year: $4,414)
• 11 Pipers Piping (per performance), $2,356 (last year: $2,285)
• 12 Drummers Drumming (per performance), $2,553 (last year: $2,475)
Those 8 maids may have not gone up in price for milking….but for $58, we can only look forward to about 17 gallons of milk…not organic., or two gallons apiece. Perhaps we can redeploy those milking maid to something more productive for the economy. Maybe sweeping, or shoveling, or raking?
Merry Holidays