PLANO, Texas--Based on the gifts in the holiday classic, "The Twelve Days of Christmas," true love will need significantly more money on-hand to fill stockings this holiday shopping season.
The average unit price tag for the PNC CPI Index in 2025 was $51,576, an increase of $2,313 over 2024, or about 4.7%.
"The allocation of the total gifts has a interesting impact on the total cost. The 2025 increase was less than the increase in 2024," said Brian Turner, president and chief economist at Meridian Economics.
The "True Cost of Christmas," which accumulates the total cost of all 78 units (364 gifts), increased to $218,743 from last year's total of $209,272 -or about 4.5%. The "Core" cost of Christmas--excluding the more volatile and unpredictable gift prices--was $139,993, compared with last year's total of $130,522.
"With rising costs experienced in the employment sector, average wage-related costs for the five related items were 5.7% higher. This compares with current wage inflation of +3.8%. The remaining seven items experienced a collective average increase of 2.8%," Turner explained.
2025 proved to be low-cost alternative in the fowl sector, due namely by lower demand for partridges, turtle doves and French hens, who's collective price increased 2.4%.
"But the increase was mainly due to the blasted pear tree that increased 13.5% from last year. Prices for fowls were unchanged," Turner noted.
After unchanged in 2024, gold ring prices increased 32.5%, that category that rose the most over this past year.
"This actually is less than the 62% increase in spot gold commodity prices in 2025 as Santa has been hoarding precious metals to fight inflation. Geese a-laying continued their upward migration, climbing 3.3% in 2025," Turner said.
As for the state of the arts, the post-COVID era seems to have recovered as people have returned to live performances.
"Having been on the sidelines for a couple of years, performers have demanded higher wages. Pipers piping, drummers drumming and ladies dancing say their average wages increase a collective 5.7%. Ladies dancing wages rose a modest 3.5% while lords a-leaping increased 8.149,263%, something that certainly will continue to fuel arguments over wage inequality," Turner said.
Moreover, the cost for maids a-milking (the only unskilled workers in the index), hasn't changed in over a decade, reflecting the stagnate level in minimum wage rates.
"So, you better watch out, better not cry, better not pout over those outrageous FedEx and UPS shipping costs (for you Internet shoppers) after all, it's the holiday season," concluded Turner.