`12 Days of Christmas' Cheap Until You Order the Dancing Ladies ($19K)

[underpants]

`12 Days of Christmas' Cheap Until You Order the Dancing Ladies

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601093&sid=antOzoRQzTS0&refer=home

Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Don't blame the partridge.

The cost of gifts in the classic holiday song ``Twelve Days of Christmas'' rose 3.1 percent to a record $18,920 this year, and it's the live entertainment's fault. Those ladies dancing, drummers drumming and pipers piping don't come cheap.

``After years of stagnation, wages for skilled workers, including the song's dancers and musicians, have increased as the labor market has tightened,'' Jeff Kleintop, chief investment strategist for the company that calculates the cost, PNC Wealth Management, said in a statement today.

The complete list for traditional shoppers is:

-One partridge in a pear tree: $145, up 38 percent from $105;

-Two turtle doves: $40, unchanged;

-Three French hens: $45, unchanged;

-Four calling birds: $480, up 20 percent from $400;

-Five gold rings: $325, unchanged;

-Six geese-a-laying: $300, unchanged;

-Seven swans-a-swimming: $4,200, unchanged;

-Eight maids-a-milking: $41, unchanged;

-Nine ladies dancing: $4,759, up 4 percent from $4,576;

-10 Lords-a-leaping: $4,160, up 3 percent from $4,039;

-11 pipers piping: $2,124, up 3.4 percent from $2,053; and,

-12 drummers drumming: $2,301, up 3.4 percent from $2,224.

[Phillycat]

1. Where the hell do you get 5 gold rings for $325?

Um, I'll take them!

[HughBeaumont]

3. Your fingers would have five greening rings.

Did they buy them from Moe's Pawn shop or something?

[cemaphonic]

2. Um, these Lords...

Are they *actual* Lords?
And they will leap around?
For $4000?

Anyone want to start up a collection? You could probably recoup the cost by charging admission.

[Hugin]

4. Something I'd never realized...

If you cooked all of the birds it wouldn't be enough to feed the performers.

Swell gift.