One of the most well known Christmas carols enumerates the gifts for the twelve days of Christmas that most of us can appreciate for the sake of tradition, but would rather not receive. I am referring to the 12 Days of Christmas and, despite the fact that any of us are likely to be gifted lords a leaping, geese a laying or a partridge in a pear tree, the PNC has used them to continue their tradition of working out the
annual Christmas Price Index, which calculates the cost of all of the items included in the famous carol and is considered to be a rough indicator of the state of inflation in the economy. For 2006, the cost of all 364 items on the list - since the previous gifts are repeated on the following day by a "true love" - $75,122.03, a 3.5% increase over last year. For the internet shopper (although one who probably did not take advantage of free shipping) the cost comes out to $125,767.32.
