{"id":638,"date":"2021-06-09T22:15:02","date_gmt":"2021-06-09T22:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karenstollznow.com\/?p=638"},"modified":"2021-06-09T22:15:03","modified_gmt":"2021-06-09T22:15:03","slug":"xmas-abbreviation-or-blasphemy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/karenstollznow.com\/?p=638","title":{"rendered":"Xmas: Abbreviation or Blasphemy?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(Originally posted December 23, 2013)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During one of the rare time I went to Sunday school as a kid, I was rebuked for writing \u201cXmas\u201d instead of \u201cChristmas\u201d on a festive card I was drawing during craft time. It was explained to a room full of wide-eyed kids that, \u201c\u2018Xmas\u2019 takes Christ out of Christmas!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many different complaints about the use of  \u201cXmas\u201d. Some people see it as blasphemous and therefore disrespectful and offensive to god. Some Christians see it as anti-Christian and therefore offensive to themselves. Like my Sunday school teacher, some believe it is the work of atheists attempting to remove Christ from Christmas. Others think that is used by those who find \u201cChrist\u201d to be Christian-centric and therefore discriminatory, or an effort of the politically correct to whitewash a hot button word. For a few people, it\u2019s a pet peeve that \u201cXmas\u201d is a crude abbreviation used by lazy people who can\u2019t be bothered to write the whole word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Many people don\u2019t know that \u201cX\u201d is simply an abbreviation for \u201cChrist\u201d. The \u201cX\u201d in Xmas<\/em> (and Xian<\/em> for Christian)<\/em> represents Chi. No, not the life force \u2013 an alleged invisible energy otherwise known as qi, ki<\/em> or prana.<\/em> Chi is a symbol in the Greek alphabet. It is the first letter in \u201cChristos\u201d (\u201cChrist\u201d) which is spelled \u03a7\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I once heard someone remark with approval, \u201cX is like a nickname for Jesus!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some people believe that \u201cXmas\u201d is a modern hipster word but it was used way before political correctness existed. An early recorded usage of X\u2019temmas<\/em>  for \u201cChristmas\u201d dates back to 1551, while Xres maesse<\/em>  for \u201cChristmas\u201d dates back to 1100. Even before these usages, \u201cChrist\u201d was often represented as Xp<\/em> (called the Chi Ro) or Xr<\/em>, corresponding to the Chr- in the Greek word for Christ. These abbreviations are known as Christograms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"150px-Simple_Labarum2.svg\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Why Greek? Well, Greek is the original language of the New Testament. The book was written in Koine, a dialect of Greek, during the first century AD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we can see, Chi resembles the Roman letter \u201cX\u201d and has also been used as a symbolic representation of the cross. In the Middle Ages, using an \u201cX\u201d as a signature was common among people who couldn\u2019t read or write. Kissing that mark became swearing an oath, which is why today, we use \u201cX\u201d to represent a kiss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, the modern issue is that both Xmas<\/em> and Christmas<\/em> are discriminatory to those who don\u2019t celebrate Christmas. To play it safe, \u201cHappy Holidays\u201d is the preferred festive greeting for many people in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever your preference, have a great holiday and all the best for 2015!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Originally posted December 23, 2013) During one of the rare time I went to Sunday school as a kid, I was rebuked for writing \u201cXmas\u201d instead of \u201cChristmas\u201d on a festive card I was drawing during craft time. It was explained to a room full of wide-eyed kids that, \u201c\u2018Xmas\u2019 takes Christ out of Christmas!\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,11,12],"class_list":["post-638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blasphemy","tag-christmas","tag-x-mas"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenstollznow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenstollznow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenstollznow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenstollznow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenstollznow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=638"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/karenstollznow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":640,"href":"https:\/\/karenstollznow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions\/640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenstollznow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenstollznow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenstollznow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}