Christmas Price Index 2024 Reflects Wage Growth and Rising Service Prices

(StatePoint) On the first day of Christmas, holiday gift giving begins with the traditional gift of a Partridge in a Pear Tree. By the first day of January, True Love pays the bill.

Each holiday season, the PNC’s Christmas Price Index tabulates the price to gift all the items in the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” and this year, that figure amounts to $49,263.47, a 5.4% increase from 2023.

PNC’s Christmas Price Index mimics the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Consumer Price Index, which measures the average change in prices consumers pay for goods and services over time. Notably higher in 2024 than the BLS’ CPI, which increased 2.4% year over year, PNC’s index reflects wage growth in the service industry as the primary driver of the overall higher price tag.

“Believe it or not, we’re still seeing the cause and effect of the pandemic-inflation hangover, even nearly five years later,” says Amanda Agati, chief investment officer of PNC’s Asset Management Group. “With years of steep price increases, we’d think inflation has nowhere to go, but we’d be wrong.”

Services Over Goods

The service-based economy is represented by the last four gifts in the index – the Ladies Dancing, Lords-a-Leaping, Pipers Piping and Drummers Drumming. They’re traditionally priced based on the cost to hire various performers and musicians. The Ten-Lords-A-Leaping, at $14,539.20, is the highest priced gift in the index for the third straight year. Overall, the service-sector gifts rose in price by 7.9% in 2024.

This rise of service-sector prices reflects a long-term evolution away from a focus on manufacturing in the U.S. economy since PNC’s index launched in 1984. At that time, goods comprised 70% of the Consumer Price Index, while today that number stands at just 35%.

Many of the gifts in the index representing goods remained unchanged in price in 2024 – the Turtle Doves, Calling Birds, Gold Rings and Swans all stayed flat, though still expensive year over year. The French Hens and Geese were the avian exceptions, with the latter representing one of the most volatile gifts in this year’s index, growing by more than 15%.

Housing Still High

The most volatile gift in the 2024 index is the first one – the Partridge in a Pear Tree - which rose in price by 17.1%. The least volatile gift, the Eight-Maids-a-Milking, has remained unchanged since 2009.

The Christmas Price Index also calculates the “True Cost of Christmas,” which is the cost of purchasing all of the gifts as they repeat in the verses of the song. That cost increased by 3.6% to $209,272 in 2024, crossing the $200K threshold for the second year in a row.

If you prefer to shop online, you’ll pay nearly $5K more for the convenience, and of course the packaging and shipping that gifts of birds require. PNC’s online Christmas Price Index cost rose by 3.9% in 2024 to a total of $54,073.69. Most of the gifts commanded an increase for internet shopping, but if you’re looking for bargain buys based on last year’s budget, the price of the Calling Birds, Gold Rings and Swans remained flat online in 2024.

For more information on the index, individual gifts and a 41-year tradition, visit pnc.com.

“Buying the same gifts year after year may seem boring,” says Agati, “but keeping track of changes in your spending enables you to be more brilliant with your money, which is what I think the Christmas Price Index sets out to do.”

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