The Twelve Days of Christmas

The past few years we have passed on the PNC Christmas Price Index, a tabulation from the folks over at PNC Wealth Management of how much it would cost to purchase all the gifts in the classic Holiday song The Twelve Days of Christmas. Here it is for 2013, which is the 30th time they have done this index that totals the cost of items gifted by a True Love who repeats all of the song's verses.  


 

A steadily improving economy has helped the index increase by 7.7% in 2013. "We were surprised to see such a large increase from a year ago, given the overall benign inflation rate in the U.S., but the dancers in the index took a huge leap this year to play catch up from paltry increases the previous few years,” PNC said. Nine Ladies Dancing vaulted with a 20 percent this year, while Lords-a-Leaping jumped 10 percent, combining for a $1,736 increase from 2012. Based on the array of all the gifts in the holiday classic, the price tag is $27,393.17 in 2013, $1,192 more than last year and the largest increase since 2010 when the index jumped 9.2 percent.

As part of its annual tradition, PNC Wealth Management also tabulates the "True Cost of Christmas," which is the total cost of items gifted by a True Love who repeats all of the song's verses. Very thoughtful True Loves must fork over $114,651.18 for all 364 gifts, a slightly more "reasonable" increase of 6.9 percent increase compared to last year.

Well, the twelve days of Christmas are almost upon us. Vintages can assure you that a True Love can get by on much less in our shop ... and get much more relevant and wonderful gifts as well.


Check out the PNC site for more details, as well as more tongue-in-cheek commentary.


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