With soaring prices and ever-growing holiday shopping budgets, are you curious what it would cost to buy all of the gifts in the 12 Days song? Well, start saving now for next year... The cost will surprise you!!!

The partridge by itself rolls in at a very budget-conscious $15, but tack on the pear tree and your first gift jumps up to $205. Of course you could watch the whole Partridge family for free on YouTube and wouldn't even have to dig a hole in the frozen ground for that pear tree.

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Wikipedia Commons
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Two turtle doves will run you $125 for the pair or $62.50 per bird. Or, it is likely tougher but you could try and capture a few garden-variety doves off your window sill and use the pennies you save on one of the more expensive birds down the list.

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Wikipedia Commons
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Three French hens (chickens) will set you back $165 for the trio or $55 per bird. Do you have to go French? Your recipient may never know the difference and you could keep your dough right here in the ole' U.S. of A and skip overseas shipping costs.

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Wikipedia Commons
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Four calling birds (what's up with all of the fowl on this list anyway?) will cause you to fork over $130 per bird or $520 for the quartet, your second most expensive winged creature on the list. I don't even know what a calling bird is... don't they all call each other on their little birdie iPhones? Nah, seriously it used to be 'colly' birds but then morphed into 'calling birds' over the centuries. These are what we know now as black birds.

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Wikipedia Commons
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Five golden rings (sans sparkly rocks) are $750 or $150 per ring, up from last year due to soaring gold prices. My first thought here is that these must be stolen, any guy who's visited a jewelry store looking for a ring for his girl will tell you that girls want rocks and the bigger the better. Besides, she'll probably be insulted if you give her these as quality is much better than quantity. Expect to shell out the customary three month's income for this one.

Flickr / Elsie Esq.
Flickr / Elsie Esq.
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Six geese a-laying are $510 or $85 per bird, small print: eggs extra. But still $85 per goose? Dang, things better tell stories like their famous mama and put my kids to bed for that price!

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Wikipedia Commons
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Seven swans a-swimming are a whopping $7,000 or $1,000 per bird!! Ugly ducklings will of course get you a discount. See one of the six geese above for the full nursery rhyme.

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Wikipedia Commons
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Eight maids-a-milking are the cheapest at $58 or $7.50 per girl which is assuming each girl is milking for just an hour at minimum wage. But what about renting the cows? Do we go to the farm or do they get shipped, sounds like this one could have some hidden costs.

Flickr / Josh Kelehan
Flickr / Josh Kelehan
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Nine ladies dancing will run you $6,294 or $700 per girl... Um, exactly what kind of ladies are we talking about here? You can see way more than nine girls shaking it for a paltry $5 cover charge at any club on the weekend. At $700 per dance, we must be at a bachelor party, or you can go to a sporting event and gawk at the cheerleaders for much less too.

Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images
Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images
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Ten lords-a-leaping will cost $477 a piece or $4767 for the group. By lords I'm assuming today's equivalent would be dignitaries and they're all so stiff I'd imagine we'd have to "donate" more than that to get them to look silly, as imagining them letting loose is about as foreign as some of their policies are. Or, just go to a sports game while you're watching the nine ladies dancing and you can knock out two birds (pun intended) with one stone and see plenty lords-of-the-stadium leaping too.

Mike Stobe/Getty Images
Mike Stobe/Getty Images
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Eleven pipers will cost you $233 a piece or $2562 for all eleven. I used to be in a bagpipe band and this one is actually pretty spot on and you might have some cash left over for earplugs if need be.

David Hardenberg/Getty Images
David Hardenberg/Getty Images
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And rolling in at number #12, your dozen drummers will run you $2775 or $231 a piece. Well, this all depends on whether you're hiring them for a wedding or at a bar to draw out your nine ladies dancing. If they're playing on Varick Street, you can get each drummer for closer to $100. Or just see the eleven pipers, they usually have a contingent of drummers bringing up the rear.

Johannes Simon/Getty Images
Johannes Simon/Getty Images
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So, at just over $25 grand you can give all of these gifts once to your true love, but remember the song is cumulative when sung, so that adds up: 12 partridges, 11 pairs of turtle doves, 30 French hens, etc. so your ultimate cost would be $107,300! Of course, if you'd like to shop from your computer chair, be prepared to let about twice that dough fly out of your pockets due to shipping costs for the live animals and the price of convenience... Nearly $41 grand should be about right if your fingers will do all of the work as opposed to your feet and if you're going to be true to the song and buy all 364 gifts, you'll break the bank at $177,958!!!

The next time you hear this song, keep in mind that true love comes at a pretty hefty price! Of course, if you just pay a little attention to your true love you can make them happy without spending a dime this Christmas! Besides, you won't need to mop up the droppings that 23 birds would create every day...

Before you click away from this page, grab a canole and check out the spoof below on the 12 Days song being that we live in "Little Italy". Arrivederci!

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