Everyone knows that old traditional Christmas carol, The Twelve Days of Christmas.  Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, you know that song because it’s inescapable.  You know, it’s the one with all the lords a-leaping and FIVE GOOLDEN RIIIINGS!  Ahem.  Anyway, if you were wanting to recreate that whole spectacle of pipers and geese, then prepare to fork out about $87,403 dollars American, or £54,000 British pounds, for the privilege of cleaning up partridge crap.

That’s according to PNC Wealth Management’s Christmas Price Index for 2009.  Every year since 1984, the group has calculated the cost of purchasing the whole list of gifts for one’s true love, according to that carol.  To go through the list once would run you about $21,466, but that’s not how the song goes.  Hence the calculation of the cost of 346 gifts, including 12 partridges in pear trees and 42 swans.

Thanks to the economic downturn, the cost of renting an army of pipers and drummers has stagnated, even if the cost of the gold rings has skyrocketed.  The reduced cost of the flock of various birds has decreased, but the price of maids a-milking (like the one above) has increased thanks to a rise in the minimum wage.  On the whole, the total cost is up only 1.8 percent over 2008’s 12 days of Christmas, which isn’t bad until you add in the cost of Krampus rental.

Tags: analysis of song lyrics, The Twelve Days of Christmas, Christmas carols, how much The Twelve Days of Christmas costs, PNC Wealth Management, Christmas Price Index, £54, 000 for the gifts in The Twelve Days of Christmas

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