'Twelve Days of Christmas' gets costly

[Gunny]

By DAN NEPHIN, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 50 minutes ago

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.

Though a humorous look, PNC said the index mirrors actual economic trends. PNC has been calculating the cost of Christmas since 1984.

Helping push the cost up this year is the minimum wage hike, which bumped the cost of eight maids a-milking from about $41 to nearly $47.

"They have not had an increase since 1997," said Jim Dunigan, managing executive of investment for PNC Wealth Management. "The good news is, if you're a maids a-milking, they will also see an increase in 2008 and 2009."

Higher food costs pushed the six geese a-laying from $300 to $360. And reflecting higher gold prices, those five gold rings will cost $395, up 21.5 percent from last year's $325.

more ... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071126/ap_on_bi_ge/twelve_days_cost

Christmas is such a scam nowadays. Kind of takes the fun out of it when you need to second mortgage to have it.

 

[midcan5]

Christmas has become an excuse to spend too much. It is sort of ironic but I joke today that I (we) enjoyed all these holidays, birthdays, more when I was poor. Now I have everything, within my liberal values I need, and it just doesn't seem the same.