Leaping Lords Boost Christmas Gift Tab

Anyone planning to purchase all 364 flamboyant gifts described in the popular yultide song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” will have to shell out a little more this year.

The damage: $55,086.26, according to the Asset Management Group at PNC Bank Corp.

The cost is up 1.12 percent this season - a slightly smaller increase than the government’s Consumer Price Index, which rose about 2 percent.

The biggest increase - lords-a-leaping jumped $127.30 to $3,309.87 - is related to a new contract signed by dancers at the Pennsylvania Ballet. Pear trees made the largest percentage jump, 140 percent to $30 from $12.50, because the nursery used in the survey picked a different type of tree this year.

The increase in the nation’s minimum hourly wage to $5.15 showed up in the cost of maids, who now command $41.20. All other prices remained the same.

The pricing started as an in-house exercise in the early 1980s. PNC Bank Corp., based in Pittsburgh, started publishing the list in 1984.