The price of Christmas

RUN4BEAR@aol.com
Thu, 12 Dec 1996 09:55:56 -0500

PHILADELPHIA (Reuter) - The cost for all the presents in ''The Twelve Days
of Christmas'' has taken an unprecedented swan dive this year. A 50 percent
fall in the price tag for ``seven swans a swimming'' helped cut this year's
bill for the items in the famous Christmas carol by $3,462.55 from 1994, PNC
Bank calculated in an index released Monday.The total cost for giving one's
true love everything from 12 drummers drumming to a partridge in a pear tree
this year is $12,481.65, down 21.7 percent from $15,944.20 in 1994 and
thelowest level since 1986.
This is the first time since researchers at PNC Bank began compiling the
annual index in 1984 that the price of Christmas has fallen significantly,
although it took a 0.6 percent dip in 1988.
The decline reflects inflation trends in the economy at large, as well as
progress in reviving the trumpeter swan population. ``The price for the
swans dropped due to a fluctuation of supply and demand,'' PNC said. ``The
general flatness in the cost of most of the items in the song reflect the low
inflation rate.'' The price for seven swimming trumpeter swans, as quoted by
the Philadelphia Zoo, dropped from $7,000 last year to $3,500.
In general, prices for consumer goods such as five gold rings were
steady or lower. But services such as leaping lords were steady or higher.
The price of five gold rings fell to $325 from $450 last year, while the
price of a pear tree fell to $12.50 from $19.99, because the nursery PNC uses
was having a sale.The cost of eight minimum-wage milkmaids was unchanged at
$34 for one hour's service, while unionized pipers
piping and drummers drumming commanded the same fees as the year before, for
the first time. Those fees were $1,109.16 for the 11 pipers and $1,201.59 for
the 12 drummers.But the bill for 10 lords a leaping climbed 5.6 percent, to
$3,182.57, the only increase on the list.
PNC also computed what it called ``the true cost of Christmas'' -- the
price for all of the gifts in the carol each time they are mentioned. The
bill for all 364 presents, including 12 partridges in a pear tree, 36 calling
birds and the rest was $51,764.94, down 29.4 percent from 1994.
The figure for 1995 was the lowest since PNC revised its calculating
methods in 1986, said economist Rebekah Fickling, who calculated the index.