redux: twelve days and one-o-seven large

Back in the day, your old (and you can put an exclamation point after that word these days) buddy Jimbo used to report every year on PNC Bank’s annual summary of what the Twelve Days of Christmas would cost a guy or gal.  Perhaps you may recall those glory days of yesteryear, and, if not, here is an example.

 http://jimboandhisfriends.blogspot.com/2004/11/twelve-days-and-sixty-six-large.html

 

Well, our buddies at PNC have come out with their numbers this year and if a brother, or sister, wants to go that traditional twelve-days-of-gifts route, it is going to set that brother or sister back one hundred and seven grand plus $300 change.  Here is a link to PNC’s website for those of you that are interested in going direct to the source.  I warn you, however, that some sort of dumb-ass contest, rather than any intelligent explanation of the economics behind the numbers pops up.  One needs to dig into the screen a bit to find the data behind the numbers

http://www.pncchristmaspriceindex.com

However, since I know you don’t want to see some old bald guy telling you about a contest, please feel free to stay here and this old bald guy will help to explain the numbers.

Basically, as the song goes, the presenter gives his gal a bird in a tree the first day and then repeats that every day for the twelve.  The second day is another couple of birds of a different species (repeated 11 times) and then three more birds of yet another species on day three, repeated ten times.  There are numerous exotic birds throughout the twelve days and it appears that a large part of the expenditure is for the fowl.

Jimbo went through and crunched the numbers and I am concerned the PNC guys didn’t shop around enough.  They figured $1000 each for the swans.  Repeated six times, that is 42 swans, or $42,000.  That is a big part of this total bill.  Yes, I found $1000 swans for sale on line, but I found cheaper ones and I am wondering if the guys at PNC tried to negotiate a quantity discount.  I asked Mrs. Jimbo if she would like 42 swans for Christmas this year and she was not warm to the idea.

The next biggest expense is the dancing ladies at $700 apiece, thirty-six times.  I am afraid when the dancing ladies showed up that Mrs. Jimbo would direct them to the door and would point her husband the same way.  When the twenty-five grand showed up on the Visa bill in January, she would suggest to Jimbo that he not let the door hit him in the ass on the way out—if she had not directed him to do that earlier.

Thirty leaping lords at $476 each (ten of them three times) is the third largest cost on the list.  The swans, the ladies and the lords total over $80 grand or more than 75% of the total nut.

While I agree with PNC that there has been inflation this year, I have to say that I have come to a similar conclusion that I did back in those heady days of 2004.  Instead of going for all of the livestock, drummers, dancers and leaping lords, we should probably consider things like ipads and flat screen televisions.  After all, it is easier to find these things on sale.

Now, get out there and start celebrating the Christmas season like you mean it.