Booming commercial construction is sparking demand for ornamental trees, leading to a 44 percent increase in the price of a pear tree, which helped push the price for buying all the items in the “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” up 3.1 percent in 2006, according to a recent study.
The satirical study, put out every year by PNC Wealth Management [Warning: Link has irritating music!], said rising labor costs led to an increase in the price of skilled labor, including the nine ladies dancing, 10 lords-a-leaping, 11 pipers piping, and 12 drummers drumming.
For Internet-savvy True Loves, PNC Wealth Management calculates the cost of The Twelve Days gifts purchased on the Web. This year, the trends identified in the traditional index are repeated in the Internet version, with overall growth of 3.4 percent, compared to 3.1 in the traditional index. Wages are up, with the Drummers earning almost 100 percent more when purchased on the Internet in 2006 compared with an Internet purchase in 2005. And, as with the traditional Christmas Price Index, bird prices are even or, in some cases, down a bit from 2005 levels. In general, Internet prices are higher than their non-Internet counterparts because of shipping costs.
Internet prices for the “Twelve Days of Christmas”?! Blasphemy… everyone should be getting their 8 maids a-milking LOCALLY!
;D
Very amusing! It reminds me of Frank Kelly’s monologue — a series of ‘thank-you’ letters to Nuala — which describes the descent into mania that the 12 gifts of Christmas produce. Nearly drove off the road yesterday as the CBC played it on the radio…
: )