WASHINGTON — If your true love's holiday shopping list includes 12 Drummers Drumming, 11 Pipers Piping, 10 Lords-a-Leaping... and all of the others gifts from "The 12 Days of Christmas," that'll cost you almost $50,000 this year.
PNC Bank is out with its 41st annual "Christmas Price Index," which calculates the change in price consumers can expect to pay for the items featured in the classic carol.
According to the company, the cost of all those gifts for your true love increased 5.4% — doubling last year's 2.7% increase and exceeding the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index (CPI) October year-over-year reading of 2.6%.
Overall, if you bought the 12 gifts for your true love it would cost $49,263.47, PNC Bank's analysis found, about $2,500 more than last year. When it launched in 1984, the total cost to buy all 12 gifts was $20,023.57.
What changed the most in 2024? While the Partridge remained unchanged, there was a 17.1% jump in price for the Pear Tree, according to the report.
The index found there were no price increases this year for five of the gifts including: the Two Turtle Doves, Four Calling Birds, Five Gold Rings, Seven Swans-A-Swimming and Eight Maids-A-Milking.
The holiday tradition also calculates the "True Cost of Christmas," which would be buying all 364 gifts mentioned throughout the carol's repeated verses. That total passed than $200,000 mark for the first time last year, and for 2024 is 3.6% higher at $209,272.
How much "12 Days of Christmas" gifts cost in 2024
- One Partridge in a Pear Tree: $370.18 ($20.18 for the partridge and $350 for the pear tree)
- Two Turtle Doves: $750
- Three French Hens: $346.50
- Four Calling Birds: $599.96
- Five Gold Rings: $1,245
- Six Geese-a-Laying: $900
- Seven Swans-a-Swimming: $13,125
- Eight Maids-a-Milking: $58
- Nine Ladies Dancing: $8,557.37
- 10 Lords-a-Leaping: $15,579.65
- 11 Pipers Piping: $3,714.96
- 12 Drummers Drumming: $4,016.85
How many gifts are in "12 Days of Christmas"?
If you counted up all of the gifts mentioned for your true love throughout "The 12 Days of Christmas" carol, you would have 364 gifts.
