The Cost of the Twelve Days of Christmas, 2025 Edition

One of the most popular traditional Christmas songs is "The Twelve Days of Christmas," which documents the cascading list of gifts "my true love gave to me" over the course of twelve days. Each year at this time, various banks and other organizations estimate the cost of the gifts, which ends up being ... well ... pretty substantial. According to PNC Bank, the total cost of the Twelve Days of Christmas for 2025 - counting the repetition of the gifts in each verse of the song - is $218,542.98, up 4.4% from last year.

That's all well and good, but I think that this year, we need to look at the gifts of the twelve days of Christmas in a manner that actually reflects the current political and economic environment ...

The traditional gifts are:

A Partridge in a Pear Tree;

Two Turtle Doves;

Three French Hens;

Four Calling Birds;

Five Gold Rings;

Six Geese a-Laying;

Seven Swans a-Swimming; 

Eight Maids a-Milking;

Nine Ladies Dancing;

Ten Lords a-Leaping; 

Eleven Pipers Piping; and,

Twelve Drummers Drumming.

Let's see how they're all faring this year.

First of all, scratch the Partridges, Turtle Doves, French Hens, Calling Birds, Geese, and Swans. The Centers for Disease Control, under the "direction" of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, has deemphaized research into and emphasis on the development and employment of vaccines that control diseases like ... bird flu. Thus, birds - as potential carriers of deadly avian-borne diseases - should be eliminated from the gift list.

Forget the Pear Trees ... Der Furor's Executive Order 14225 of March 1, 2025 ("Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production") opened up huge stretches of forests to commercial logging, which means that pear trees will be in increasingly short supply and their cost will skyrocket. 

Maids a-Milking are in short supply, as many of the people working in such low-level farming jobs have questionable immigration status and have either been scooped up and deported in ICE raids, voluntarily returned to their home countries, or gone to ground so as not to draw attention to themselves. If you can find any, you can probably get them cheap, although you'll risk prosecution for harboring criminal illegal aliens.

Dancing Ladies, Pipers, and Drummers are decreasing in number as a result of the administration's slashing of support to music and the arts. Those that remain may be willing to work at reduced rates just to have jobs.

Gold Rings remain a viable gift, but have been overshadowed by emphasis on cryptocurrencies and, for the MAGA faithful, by the $TRUMP memecoin as an expression of their slavish devotion to Der Furor and his relentless monetization of the presidency. "Five Trump memecoins" still follows the rhythm of the original song.

Finally, there should be plenty of Lords a-Leaping available for this year's Twelve Days of Christmas list. Der Furor's Executive Order 14351 of September 19, 2025, established the "Trump Gold Card" program to "facilitate the  entry of aliens who have demonstrated their ability and desire to advance the interests of the United States by voluntarily providing a significant financial gift to the Nation" - such gifts to start at a minimum of $1,000,000. This will encourage not only "lords" (with traditional hereditary titles and inherited fortunes) but plenty of otherwise unremarkable and often boorish ... or even criminal ... nouveau riche whose only qualification for citizenship is wealth with which to buy it. 

I'm sorry, but "The Twelve Days of Christmas" is probably not a very good holiday song this year. Better luck in 2026.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo