The word ‘Xmas’ doesn’t mean what you think it does
Ella Scott
Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Image
December 25 is almost upon us, which means presents, good grub, and catching up with family and old friends will be on the cards for many of us who celebrate.
If you’re still yet to wrap and address your gifts, or deliver your holiday cards to your neighbours, then you may make your last-minute writing tasks easier by shortening ‘Merry Christmas’ down ‘Happy Chrimbo’.
Or you could just text ‘Hpy Xmas’ and be done with it. But have you ever stopped to wonder why so many of us abbreviate Christmas down to ‘Xmas’?
Traditionally, Christmas is the Christian celebration of Jesus, the supposed son of God’s birth.
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The biblical story goes that his mother Mary and his father Joseph travelled to Nazareth, giving birth to their miracle child in a cattle shed.
This annual holy day’s name is said to originate from the phrase ‘Cristes Maesse’, which means the Mass of Christ or Christ’s Mass.
With Christmas already being shorthand for Christ’s Mass, at what point did the word get even smaller?
In the early fourth century, Roman Emperor Constantine the Great apparently wanted Jesus Christ on his side as he marched into battle against Maxentius, according to Vox.
To channel the chosen one, he is said to have created a military banner, emblazoned with the first two letters of the word ‘Christ’ in Greek (Χριστός) on it. These were ‘X’ or Chi, and ‘ρ’ or Rho. This Chi-Rho monogram then became shorthand for Jesus Christ.
Meanwhile, pastor Josh Howerton, who is popular on Instagram, revealed that in the past, when Christians were being martyred for their faith, their graves would be marked with Chi.
In 1801, poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge would write that ‘on Xmas day I breakfasted with Davy’, while the verb ‘xmassing’ was used in 1884, according to The Guardian.
Despite Xmas supposedly coming from the Greek word for Christ, lots of religious people aren’t too keen on the abbreviation.
Redditors have had their say on why they think there’s a war on the word.
“Some Christians think that using Xmas instead of Christmas is taking Christ out of Christmas. They objected to the use of Xmas,” explained one user.
“It's pretty much an abbreviation that’s so old that people forget it’s an abbreviation,” argued someone else.
A third social media user typed: “The people who get upset about Xmas are those who order chai tea at the coffee shop. It means the same thing. (I'm Christian, so it doesn't bother me)."
Writing at First Things, Matthew Schmitz reasoned: “The cultural, religious, communal traditions we see as especially embodied by Christmas have been undermined by the rise of commerce and cult of efficiency.
“The desire to get from point A to B by the shortest possible route, irrespective of the charms of traditional byways, fuels our mania for abbreviation.”
He added that the hatred for the word ‘Xmas’ may stem in part from an ‘innate suspicion of the attempt to render all things ancient and beautiful modern, cheap, and sleek.’
So next time someone tells you ‘it’s Christmas, not Xmas’ you can hit them with the fact that you’re just channelling a Roman emperor.