NEXT CHRISTMAS, THE FRENCH HENS WILL BE WHINING FOR A BIG RAISE
	-- by Laura Bird, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Attention true lovers and inflation watchers:  Higher wages for ladies
dancing and maids a-milking are driving up the price of a traditional
Christmas.

The cost of buying the gifts in "The Twelve Days of Christmas" song rose
5.7% this year to $13,196 from $12,482, according to the annual Christmas
Price Index calculated by PNC Bank Corp.  For purists who total up all 12
partridges, 12 pear trees and every other item mentioned in all dozen
verses, the true cost rose to $54,478 from $51,765.

Blame it on the Philadelphia Dance Company, whose performances fees rose
for the first time in four years, pushing up the cost of nine ladies
dancing by 25%.  As for 10 lords a-leaping (dancers from the Pennsylvania
Ballet doing leaps in lordly attire), their salaries held constant this
year, but should rise under a provision of the new labor contract, PNC
economist Rebekah McCahan Fickling says.

Milkmaids come cheap, yet less so than last year.  The cost of an hour of
milking by eight maids this year rose 11.8% to $38, reflecting the higher
hourly minimum wage.  Cows aren't included.

The index mirrors rising wages in the service side of the economy, says
Patrick Bradley of PNC's asset-management group, which has compiled the
index since 1984.  "That isn't to say there aren't productivity increases"
in this sector, he says, quick to defend the dancing ladies and milkmaids,
only that "statistics measure them poorly."

This year's spurt in the Christmas index exceeds the overall inflation
rate of 2.8% for the first nine months of 1996, according to the U.S.
Consumer Price Index.  And it follows a nearly 22% decline last Christmas,
when prices of pear trees, gold rings and swans, especially, took a dive.

Still the index's chief luxury item, swans are selling at a deep discount.
After dropping 50% last year, the price the Philadelphia Zoo quotes for
seven long-necked trumpeter swans held constant at $3,500, the result of
more successful breeding in captivity.

The price of five 14-karat gold wedding bands also was unchanged this
year, at $325 at a Philadelphia jewelry store, following a 28% decline
last year.  (Tastes are shifting toward gems in wedding bands, it seems.)
And the price of a pear tree remained $12.50, following a decrease of more
than 37% in 1995.

From The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, November 12, 1996