You’re familiar with the popular Christmas carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” right? Well, have you ever wondered how much it would set you back if you actually purchased all of the items mentioned in the song for your own true love?
One company did and put together an itemized list, complete with prices, which revealed how much the 364 items would cost from the 12 drummers drumming down to the single partridge in a pear tree.
Be prepared to dig deep if you want to bring home all 12 days worth of goods.
The total amount is…
Drum roll please
A whopping $78,100.
According to PNC Wealth Management, the price tag includes all of the carol’s items presented repeatedly on each day as the song suggests. However, if you were to buy each item in the song just once it would cost just $19,507. PNC even calculated how much the items would cost if you shopped online. If you shopped from the confines of your own home the price of the items would skyrocket to $128,886. By the way, you would end up spending $31,249 online if you bought each item just once this year.
The wealth management company has been calculating the cost of Christmas for more than 20 years and says the totals mirror actual economic trends. For example, this year’s minimum wage hike bumped the cost of eight maids a-milking from about $41 in 2006 to nearly $47 in 2007.
In addition, higher food costs pushed the price of six geese a-laying from $300 last year to $360 this year. And you won’t be getting a bargain on those five gold rings this Christmas either. Higher gold prices affected the cost of this year’s bling. At today’s prices the rings would cost you $395, up 21.5 percent from last year’s $325.
But not everything costs more this year. For instance, the price of a partridge ($15), two turtle doves ($40) and three French hens ($40) remained the same, as did seven swans a-swimming, at $4,200, and nine ladies dancing, at $4,759.
PNC says it checks jewelry stores, dance companies, pet stores and other sources nationwide to compile the list.
I got a good chuckle from the results, but honestly, I could think of a ton of other gifts I would like to find under my tree on Christmas morning that cost less than $78,000.
What about you?
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