Let’s be honest… If you truly think the idea of buying your true love a menagerie of birds and a dozen percussionists is a great idea, we need to get you a personal shopping assistant ASAP. But if you’re simply curious about how inflation has hit the items in one of the best-known Christmas carols, the answer is: a lot.
Picking up every item listed in “The 12 Days of Christmas” will cost you 5.4% more this year than in 2023, compared to a 2.7% increase from just a year ago. (It’s a steep climb this year, but it’s still nowhere close to the 10.5% increase of 2022.) Should you choose to buy these truly odd gifts for your beloved, you’ll shell out $49,263 this year, according to the 40th annual PNC Christmas Price Index.
Blame the birds. And the drummers. And while you’re at it, cast a nasty glance at the pipers as well.
Should you be a Christmas completist/traditionalist who is absolutely out of their mind and buys all 364 of the gifts (seriously, enough with the pear trees!), you’ll end up paying $209,272. You’ll also likely be single by the end of the holiday season.
Oh, and throw those poor maids-a-milking a tip, would ya? They haven’t seen a wage increase since 2009!
Which gifts have seen the biggest spikes? Okay, Doolittle, let’s talk about the birds. First—and this is important—no one wants 184 birds for Christmas, especially 42 geese walking around the living room honking and…well, you know. Geese are jerks.
Those geese will cost you 15.4% more this year, by the way. And the partridge in the pear tree(s) saw a 16% spike, though you can blame the tree for that. The pipers piping and drummers drumming? Those are 15.8% more expensive.
(This seems like a good place to note that aspirin, while not one of the gifts mentioned in the song but a great stocking stuffer if you actually do this, is also more expensive this year.)
Still determined to expose your true love to potential avian flu, jewelry, and a bunch of strangers in their home? Here’s how the prices break down.
Gift | 2024 price |
A partridge + a pear tree | $370.18 (+16%) |
2 turtle doves | $750 (unch) |
3 French hens | $346.50 (+5%) |
4 calling birds | $599.96 (unch) |
5 gold rings | $1,245 (unch) |
6 geese -a-laying | $900 (+15.4%) |
7 swans -a-swimming | $13,125 (unch) |
8 maids-a-milking | $58 (unch) |
9 ladies dancing | $8,557.37 (+3%) |
10 lords-a-leaping | $15,579.65 (+7.2%) |
11 pipers piping | $3,714.96 (+15.8%) |
12 drummers drumming | $4,016.85 (+15.8%) |