What Would the Gifts in the 12 Days of Christmas Cost in 2025?

There are many ways to show affection during the holiday season. You can write a heartfelt note. You can cook a favorite meal. You can even brave a crowded store and purchase something tasteful, practical, and returnable.

Or, if you are committed to tradition, poetry, and financial self-sabotage, you can attempt to follow the gift-giving guidance laid out in the classic carol The 12 Days of Christmas.

The song helpfully provides a complete shopping list for Christmas gifts. Less helpfully, it does not provide a budget.

This is not the first time we have asked what this festive gesture of devotion would actually cost. In fact, we’ve been checking in on this tradition for years, watching it slowly mutate from “charmingly impractical” into “economic warning sign.”

Back in 2015, the total cost of delivering all 364 gifts over twelve days came to $155,407.18. At the time, that figure was described as being “only” 0.6% higher than the year before, which feels adorable in hindsight.

By 2021, that same list of gifts had climbed to a net cost of $174,083.15. The increase was noticeable, but still lived comfortably in the realm of “wow, that’s expensive” rather than “this is an economics lecture disguised as a carol.”

Now, in 2025, we have crossed fully into the latter category.

A Brief Reminder of What You’re Actually Buying

The song’s structure means you are not giving twelve gifts total. You are giving 364. By the end of the festivities, your true love is the proud new owner of:

12 partridges in pear trees, 22 turtle doves, 30 French hens, 36 calling birds, 40 gold rings, 42 geese-a-laying, 42 swans-a-swimming, 40 maids-a-milking, 36 ladies dancing, 30 lords-a-leaping, 22 pipers piping, and 12 drummers drumming.

This is not a gift list. It is a logistics problem.

From 2015 to 2025: Inflation Enters the Carol

In 2015, a single partridge in a pear tree cost $214.99. By 2021, that figure had crept up to $222.68. In 2025, the same combination now runs about $420.18.

Twelve of them will cost you more than $5,000, which is an impressive achievement for a bird most people have never seen and a tree that does not come with fruit.

Turtle doves tell a similar story. A pair cost $290 in 2015, jumped to $450 in 2021, and now sits around $750. Twenty-two birds will cost more than some used cars.

French hens, calling birds, and gold rings have all followed predictable inflationary arcs, with gold rings doing what gold always does during uncertain times: quietly becoming much more expensive while pretending this is normal.

Then there are the swans.

The Swans Remain Unapologetic

In 2015, seven swans-a-swimming cost $13,125. In 2021, they still cost $13,125. In 2025, they continue to cost $13,125.

This consistency might sound comforting until you realize that you need forty-two of them.

The swans alone account for $78,750 of your total budget, making them the single largest expense in every version of this exercise. They do not inflate. They simply dominate.

Swans are the fixed-rate mortgage of Christmas gifts.

Human Labor: Surprisingly Reasonable

The human-centered gifts—maids, dancers, lords, pipers, and drummers—are where things briefly become sensible. As in previous years, we assume these figures are hired professionals providing short-term festive services, and not evidence of an elaborate yuletide felony, which would put a noticeable damper on the holiday mood.

In 2015, eight maids-a-milking cost $58. In 2021, they cost about $84 under our minimum-wage math. In 2025, the price has somehow drifted back down to roughly $58 per set, suggesting that milking maids have become more efficient, and making this one of the only gifts that has not spiraled into absurdity.

Ladies dancing, pipers piping, and drummers drumming have all increased since 2021, but in a way that still resembles the real world. These costs rise the way labor costs usually do: gradually, rationally, and with invoices.

The birds, by contrast, have clearly unionized.

2025 Cost Breakdown: Each Gift and the Total Across All 12 Days

Using the 2025 PNC Christmas Price Index figures, here is how you should plan your budget when shopping for your true love:

• Partridge in a Pear Tree — one: $420.18; total across 12 days (12): $5,042.16
• Two Turtle Doves — one pair: $750.00; total across 12 days (11 pairs / 22 birds): $8,250.00
• Three French Hens — one set of three: $346.50; total across 12 days (10 sets / 30 hens): $3,465.00
• Four Calling Birds — one set of four: $599.96; total across 12 days (9 sets / 36 birds): $5,399.64
• Five Gold Rings — one set of five: $1,649.90; total across 12 days (8 sets / 40 rings): $13,199.20
• Six Geese-a-Laying — one set of six: $930.00; total across 12 days (7 sets / 42 geese): $6,510.00
• Seven Swans-a-Swimming — one set of seven: $13,125.00; total across 12 days (6 sets / 42 swans): $78,750.00
• Eight Maids-a-Milking — one group of eight (labor): $58.00; total across 12 days (5 groups / 40 maids): $290.00
• Nine Ladies Dancing — one group of nine: $8,856.88; total across 12 days (4 groups / 36 dancers): $35,427.52
• Ten Lords-a-Leaping — one group of ten: $16,836.14; total across 12 days (3 groups / 30 lords): $16,836.14
• Eleven Pipers Piping — one group of eleven: $3,797.48; total across 12 days (2 groups / 22 pipers): $7,594.96
• Twelve Drummers Drumming — one group of twelve: $4,106.08; total across 12 days (1 group): $4,106.08

Grand total for all 364 gifts:

• 2015 total: $155,407.18
• 2021 total: $174,083.15
• 2025 total: $218,542.98

That’s an increase of more than $63,000 since 2015, or roughly the cost of learning a very important lesson about traditions, poetry, and unchecked escalation.

A Modest Proposal

The 12 Days of Christmas gifts were never meant to be a practical shopping guide. It was a memory exercise, a song, and possibly a prank played on future generations.

Still, if you feel compelled to honor it, there is no rule that says you must use live animals, precious metals, or professional entertainers. You are free to reinterpret. You can substitute ornaments. You can bake cookies. You can buy one very nice gift and stop.

And if you feel a symbolic gesture is required, a Burt Reynolds Chia Pet will do nicely. It represents patience, growth, and the quiet wisdom of knowing when to stop before your expression of love requires zoning approval. Most importantly, it allows you to celebrate the holiday spirit without introducing forty-two swans into anyone’s bathtub, which history suggests is always the right call.

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