'12 Days Of Christmas' Gifts: What It Would Cost To Buy Them In 2025

PENNSYLVANIA — For more than 40 years, PNC has tracked the price of the birds, entertainers and other gifts that comprise the classic "Twelve Days of Christmas" holiday song and releases those costs part of its Christmas Price Index. It's a lighthearted yuletide take on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index.

This year, the Pittsburgh-based financial corporation doesn't have good news. Purchasing everything on True Love's shopping list will cost 4.5 percent more this year than it did in 2024.

“This year’s index reflects the pressures from a tight labor market and lingering global economic uncertainties,” Amanda Agati, chief investment officer of PNC’s Asset Management Group, said in a statement.

“Despite what many may presume, tariffs are not a driver at all in the big year-over-year increases we are seeing in the PNC CPI. Why? Because True Love’s shopping list only includes domestically produced goods and services.”

The total cost to buy the items this year s $51,476.12. Here is the breakdown, according to PNC's website:

• A partridge in a pear tree: $420.18, a 13.5 percent increase - not because of the bird, but because of land, labor and fertilizer costs associated with its pear tree home.

• Two turtle doves: $750, the same price as last year.

• Three French hens: $346.50, the same price as last year - and a lot less expensive than two turtle doves.

• Four calling birds: $599.96, a price that has not changed since 2014.

• Five gold rings: $1,649.90, a 32.5 percent increase. PNC blames the huge price hike on inflation, Federal Reserve rate cut expectations and a declining U.S. dollar that has sent investors racing for gold and other precious metals.

• Six geese-a-laying: $930, a 3.3 percent increase.

• Seven swans-a-swimming: $13,125. Though the cost did not rise from last year, those swans remained the most expensive group of birds in the index.

• Eight maids-a-milking: $58, same as last year as their cost was tied to the federal minimum wage.

• Nine Ladies Dancing: $8,856.88, a 3.5 percent increase. PNC claims the ladies "keep raising their price."

• Ten lords-a-leaping: $16,836.14, an 8.1 percent increase that PNC attributes to the rising costs of live entertainment.

• Eleven Pipers Piping: $3,797.48, a 2.2 percent increase that PNC considers a bargain compared to the cost of hiring 10 lords-a-leaping.

• Twelve Drummers Drumming: $4,106.08, a 2.2 percent increase that PNC attributes to the increased cost of performers.

“With the Fed’s recent focus on looser monetary policy, it will be very interesting to see where the Christmas Price Index shakes out in 2026,” Agati said.

“Will we finally get the gift of substantially lower inflation, or will still-elevated inflation be the proverbial lump of coal in shoppers’ and investors’ stockings? It all depends on whether the purple haze of policy uncertainty dissipates in the new year.”