Last week the investment company PNC Wealth Management issued its annual “True Cost of Christmas” index which reported that purchasing all the items mentioned in “The Twelve Days of Christmas” costs more than ever — $101,000, up 4.4 percent from last year.

The high price of gold sent retail demand plummeting so the cost of the five golden rings actually went down.

Seven-swans-a-swimming rose by 13 percent.

Pipers piping and drummers drumming “saw modest increases, both up 3%.”

But the cost of eight-maids-a-milking, representing the only unskilled labor, remained unchanged — there was no increase this year in the minimum wage.