If you buy all the gifts from the 12 Days of Christmas this year, you will pay twice as much as last year

Picking up every item listed in the “Twelve Days of Christmas” will cost you 5.4% more this year than in 2023, compared to a 2.7% increase from just a year ago. (That’s a steep climb this year, but still nowhere near the 10.5% increase from 2022.) If you decide to buy these truly unusual gifts for your loved one, you’ll shell out $49,263 this year, according to the 40th annual PNC Christmas Price Index.

Blame the birds. And drummers. And while you’re at it, take a nasty look at the bagpipers too.

Are you supposed to be a Christmas completist/traditionalist who is completely crazy and buys all 364 gifts (seriously, enough with pear trees!), you’ll end up paying $209,272. You’ll also likely be single by the end of the holiday season.

Oh… and tip those poor maids for milking, will you? Their salaries have not increased since 2009!

Which gifts experienced the biggest jumps? Ok, Doolittle, let’s talk about birds. First – and this is important – nobody wants 184 birds for Christmas, especially 42 geese walking around the living room honking and… well, you know. Geese are jerks.

By the way, those geese will cost you 15.4% more this year. And partridge on pear trees saw a 16% jump, although you can blame that on the tree. Bagpipe players playing and drummers drumming? They are more expensive by 15.8%.

(This seems like a good place to note that aspirin, while not one of the gifts mentioned in the poem, is a great stocking stuffer if you actually do also more expensive this year.)

Still determined to expose your true love to potential bird flu, jewelry, and a bunch of strangers in their home? Here’s how the prices are collapsing.