Christmas Price Index chose the items in the popular Christmas carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas" as its market basket: a partridge in a pear tree, two turtle doves, three French hens, four calling birds, five gold(en) rings, six geese, seven swans, eight maids, nine dancing ladies, ten leaping lords, eleven pipers, and twelve drummers. According to tradition, the purchasing of the items begins on December 26 and ends on January 6. PNC compiles both a "Christmas Price Index" and "The True Cost of Christmas." The "Christmas Price Index" is calculated by adding the cost of the items in the song. The "True
The Twelve Days of Christmas (song) and so would hardly need to be secretly encoded. The now-standard melody for the carol was published in 1909 by Novello & Co.. English composer Frederic Austin fitted the words to a traditional melody, to which he added his own two-bar motif for "Five gold rings". Many of the decisions Austin made with regard to the lyrics subsequently became widespread: The time signature of this song is not constant, unlike most popular music. This irregular meter perhaps reflects the song's folk origin. The introductory lines, such as "On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me", are