This year cost of gifts in ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ rises to $78,100

[MrCoffee]

PITTSBURGH - While the origins of the Christmas carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas” may be a mystery, one thing is certain: It’s getting more costly to buy your true love all the items mentioned.

It would cost $78,100 to buy the 364 items, from a single partridge in a pear tree to the 12 drummers drumming, repeatedly on each day as the song suggests, according to the annual PNC Christmas Price Index compiled by PNC Wealth Management. The cost is up 4 percent from $75,122 last year.

Buying each item in the song just once would cost $19,507, up 3.1 percent from last year’s $18,921. And shopping online would be costlier, with the total for the 364 items costing $128,886, up 2.5 percent from last year’s $125,767. You would spend $31,249 online for each item just once this year.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21964782/

[flvegan]

1. How much for JUST the 9 ladies dancing?

Gonna need 8 more poles, though.

[LeftyMom]

2. You can add that, along with the Infiniti, to the list of things I'm definitely not getting you.

:D

[supernova]

3. Why is online more expensive? Shipping?

[HuffleClaw]

4. '8 maids 'a milking' are only $47 !

and wow, swans are a fortune.

[Aristus]

5. All that money, and I'd send it all back anyway...

The Twelve Days After Christmas

(Not sung to the same tune as the other song!)

The first day after Christmas, my true love and I had a fight.
And so I chopped the pear tree down and burned it just for spite.
Then, with a single cartridge, I shot that blasted partridge,
That my true love, my true love gave to me.

The second day after Christmas, I pulled on the old rubber gloves
And very gently wrung the necks of both the turtle doves,
My true love, my true love, my true love gave to me.

The third day after Christmas, my mother caught the croup;
I had to use the three French hens to make some chicken soup.
The four calling birds were a big mistake,
For their language was obscene .
The five gold rings were completely fake
And they turned my fingers green.

The sixth day after Christmas, the six laying geese wouldn't lay:
I gave the whole darn gaggle to the ASPCA.

On the seventh day what a mess I found:
All seven of the swimming swans had drowned,
My true love, my true love, my true love gave to me.

The eighth day after Christmas, before they could suspect,
I bundled up the . . .
Eight maids a-milking,
Nine pipers piping,
Ten ladies dancing,
'Leven lords a-leaping,
Twelve drummers drumming
(spoken) Well, actually I kept one of the drummers(girls)
Well, actually I kept one of the maids a-milking(boys)

And sent them back collect.
I wrote my true love, "We are through, love"
And I said in so many words,
"Furthermore your Christmas gifts were for the birds!"
(echo of "four calling birds, three french hens, two turtle doves
and a partridge in a pear tree."