"Christmas" vs. "Xmas"...
 

"Don't take Christ out of Christmas"??? Ever hear anyone say this? Ever wonder where the "X" in "Xmas" came from in the first place? Some seem to believe it's a means of crossing Christ out of Christmas...I'm not so convinced this is always the case....

(Don't feel like rewording something someone else has already clearly explained. If in doubt, research....thankfully with the internet, which I'm assuming you all have, attending a university is not necessary to do this...OK, bad joke.)

"Xmas is not of modern coinage. The Oxford English Dictionary documents the use of this abbreviation back to 1551. Undoubtedly it was employed before that. Now 1551 is fifty years before the first English colonists came to America and sixty years earlier than the completion of the King James Version of the Bible! Moreover, at the same time, Xian and Xianity were in frequent use as abbreviations of Christian and Christianity.

You see, the X in Xmas did not originate as our English alphabet's X but as the symbol X in the Greek alphabet, called Chi. The Greek Chi or X is the first letter in the Greek word Christos. As early as the first century the X was used as Christ's initial. Certainly through church history we can trace this usage. In many manuscripts of the New Testament, X abbreviates Christos (Xristos). In ancient Christian art X and XR (Chi Ro--the first two letters in Greek of Christos abbreviate his name. We find that this practice entered the Old English language as early as AD 100. Devout believers used X as an abbreviation for Christ. Were they trying to take Christ away and substitute an unknown quantity? The idea is preposterous.

Some may use Xmas today as an unchristian shortcut for Christmas, but the ancient abbreviation by no means originated as such. The scribes who copied New Testament manuscripts had no intention of taking Christ out of the New Testament. They used the abbreviation simply to save time and space. We use abbreviations for the same purpose today, as witness FDR, HST, JFK, LBJ, and a host of others. Xmas is a legitimate abbreviation. I do not use it because of the possible misunderstanding it often causes as a result of its misrepresentation or abuse. But by no means can the use of the abbreviation be a valid objection to the observance of Christmas itself! Is God against abbreviations?"

Of course, I enjoy and celebrate Christmas. And as I've made clear countless times, I do not believe in Jesus as my lord and personal savior. No need for me to celebrate his birthday. I enjoy Christmas, or "Xmas", as a means of fun and something to look forward to each year. Kids like it, my mom likes it, stores/homes typically smell better, and all the lights are really pretty.

X X X X T T T T I I I N N A A

Two guys are fighting outside and someone is making noodles.

wow sway! This post is great! Thanks for the history on this.

It has bothered me when ppl use xmas. I'm not one of those preachin "don't take the christ out of christmas" I just take christ very seriously and do not prefer to abbreviate his name in a holiday dedicated to him. I also do not like to use te term "oh my god" or gosh unless I am really in need of god.

I think it is great that you still enjoy the holiday even though you are not into that shit. That is why it exists. It does not exist so we can start buying shit in september with candy canes on it. It is not a holiday originally intened to have entire commercial industries built around. Christmas makes me sad sometimes because it has turned into a crock of shit. THree months of being barraged with advertisements to buy crap they don't need to show your loved ones how much you care about them.

Raman noodles?

It started to smell like chicken broth or something now.

I LOL'ed.

:)

this holiday season, my multidenominational household will be celebrating in various ways.

my wife will be dancing naked for Yule and I will most likely sacrifice a chicken (or perhaps, a Cornish game hen) in homage to my patron, Thee Great Elocution, Papa Legba Atibon.

I hope this helps.

Oh, all that stuff bothers me too. Too many people dread it because of the amount of money they feel morally obligated to spend, when they should really only feel morally obligated to (hopefully...) have the day off with their family + have fun. That aspect of it is sad, I agree.

chicken noodle soup...sounds good

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to floatingslowly again.

I would ratrher just eliminate it entirely.

alot of ppl agree

BIONIC is awesome. There's a song about oral w/ Nicki Minaj and another jam called "Sex For Breakfast," on the flipside "You Lost Me" might just be Xtina's most vocally accomplished ballad to date.

I don't take Christ very seriously. Don't know if he'd like that.

oh knoxy:)

amen amen. welcome to biblical etymology, the only way to make sense of the Scriptures according to Saint Augustine

the 'x' in 'xmas' is a substitute crucifix for christ...

thanks -- the rest of us just went ahead and read that in THE FIRST POST instead of skipping down to yrs.

It's a Fall reference.

so is yr face!

Let's see....one major spelling/fake compound word error, one annoying abbreviation, and a total lack of capitalization or punctuation.
All of these things bother me more than "Xmas" ever could. These things happen far more often, all year round.

Have you not figured out yet that I write as such intentionally on occasion? Get with the gail program man.

Do I have to use emoticons to indicate light-hearted ribbing?

Sir Savage Clone, your high horse is ready. Are you?

Stepladder, plz.


(Do you see what I did there?)

Didn't need the explanation, thanks.

I am feeling the need for hammer-on-the-head obviousness today.
Ruins the humor, naturally, but there you have it.

dID i?

iF i dO I dONT THink I rEAlize:)

nope. What did you do?

Whatever Sir Savage Clone demands. I'll just wait in a dark corner of your palace.

....In a box.

Not necessarily, explain Leslie Neilsen then?

Take note everyone.

The genius of his humor was that it was so "dumb" that explanations were completely unnecessary.

Whose?

Christ's Mass and the Yule holiday are two very different things. It is when it is, because generally people like to hold power over others. I'd love to see Christ embracing religions choose their own holiday date, with a little closer resemblance to the possible dob, but what are you going to do when someone elses just seem's cooler and all the biznezes already revolve around big sales for that date.

My mom's a pretty devout lady and hates the idea of 'Xmass'. However, she'd probably intrigued by that history presented in the first post. Though she hates 'Xmass' she still writes it on all of the boxes we keep our Christmas stuff in. Why? Quicker than writing Christmas.

And everything is to the back with a little slack, 'cause inside out is wiggitiwiggitiwiggitiwack!

:)