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Christmas Price Index increases: blame five golden rings

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If you are looking to buy all the gifts mentioned in the holiday classic “12 Days of Christmas,” you might have to take out a small loan.

Christmas will be slightly more expensive in 2009, according to the Christmas Price Index – a measure of the total cost to buy all the items listed in the song – which increased by 0.9 percent, according to CNNMoney.com.

The total cost to buy all 79 items mentioned in the songs final verse? $21,465.56.

Sounds like a joke, right? But PNC Financial Services Group, which does the survey, says the index reflects patterns in the broader economy.

Five golden rings, for example, have never cost so much. The cost of the five golden rings has gone up 43 percent because of record high gold prices. And, because the nation’s jobless rate is above 10 percent, lords a-leaping, pipers piping and drummers drumming saw their costs stagnate in 2009. Maids a-milking, the only unskilled laborers in the study, saw an increase in the cost of their services because of an increase in the federal minimum wage.

So if you want to impress someone special this year with nine ladies dancing, the most expensive item on the list, it will cost you a cool $5,473.07. Or you could be a miser and take advantage of partridge prices, which are down 50 percent from last year, by buying one for just $10.

And while you’re at it, at least throw in a pear tree. It will only cost you $149 more.

See the full list here.