Gifts in the song ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ increased 2.7% this year: PNC

There was a slight collective price increase in the presents given in the “Twelve Days of Christmas” this year, the PNC Christmas Price Index indicated.

The financial services company said how much the gift-giving “true love” would have to shell out for the presents in the well-known song experienced a 2.7% year-over-year increase, coming in at $46,729.86 for 2023. 

It would require a whopping $201,972.66 for the “Twelve Days of Christmas” if one looked at the 364 presents cumulatively given over the course of the whole song, according to PNC. Prior to 2023, it had never reached above $200,000.

Those figures come after last year’s PNC Christmas Price Index amounted to $45,523.27 for the 12 gifts and $197,071 for the 364.

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For 2023, PNC said the various holiday gifts bestowed by the “true love” respectively cost the following:

-Partridge in a pear tree at $319.18

-Two turtle doves at $750

-Three French hens at $330

-Four calling birds at $599.96

-Five golden rings at $1,245

-Six geese-a-laying at $780

-Seven swans-a-swimming at $13,125

-Eight maids-a-milking at $58

-Nine ladies dancing at $8,308.12

-10 lords-a-leaping at $14,539.20

-11 pipers piping at $3,207.38

-12 drummers drumming at $3,468.02

Of the 12 gift types, seven had their costs go up and five kept the same level as last year. 

The partridge, up 13.9% year-over-year, and the two turtle doves, up 25% year-over-year, demonstrated the most notable jumps, according to PNC. The bank linked those to rising “housing costs” of the pear tree and to rarity, respectively. 

“Rising wages for skilled labor, represented by the performers” also played a part in the “Twelves Days of Christmas” gifts experiencing an overall increase, PNC said. 

The PNC Christmas Price Index “is a light-hearted take on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) CPI [Consumer Price Index],” the bank has said. 

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In October, data showed there was no change month-over-month and a 3.2% increase year-over-year in the Consumer Price Index, as previously reported by FOX Business.

“The most aggressive Federal Reserve interest rate hiking cycle in history and slowing growth in some of the largest global economies, along with other macroeconomic crosscurrents, have helped lower the PNC CPI compared to recent years,” PNC Asset Management Group Chief Investment Officer Amanda Agati said in a statement. 

In 2022, for example, the PNC Christmas Price Increase posted a rise of 10.5%.

JEROME POWELL SAYS FED ‘WON’T HESISTATE’ TO RAISE INTEREST RATES AGAIN IF WARRANTED

The Federal Reserve has its next meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee slated to happen in mid-December during which officials will make a decision on whether to take further action on interest rates.

The range of the Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate currently sits at 5.25% to 5.5%. At the most recent FOMC meeting that ran Oct. 31 to Nov. 1, the central bank chose to keep it at that level. 

Megan Henney contributed to this report.