The Cost of Christmas


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 1996, 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 $15,964.20 in 1996 and the lowest 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. The North American population of the swans has risen from 73 in 1935 to more than 14,000 now, driving down the price and bringing the government close to removing the birds from the endangered species list, PNC said.


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.

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