XMas?... ok? Not ok?

December 8

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Did you ever wonder why you see Christmas abbreviated as Xmas? When I was growing up, my mom didn’t like that – she thought that “they” were taking Christ out of Christmas. You may have even heard people say that today “Keep Christ in Christmas”. I’ve never used the Xmas abbreviation because of that.

But then I became interested in the original language of the Bible – the Bible before Christ was born is called the Old Testament and was written mostly in Hebrew. The Bible that was written after Christ was born is called the New Testament and was written in Greek. Greek is fascinating! They can use one word to describe something that takes a whole paragraph in English.

I learned the Greek alphabet and discovered that the English letters CH is one letter in Greek – X. The Greek word for Christ is Christos. The use the Xmas actually started in the year 1021! Almost a thousand years ago! Parchment paper was super expensive, so any method to save space was used. The “mas” in Christmas means Mass. So Christmas meant the Mass of Christ, or a worship service to celebrate the birth of Christ.

I read that in 2016 when Christmas fell on a Sunday, a large church cancelled their Sunday services so families could spend time together. This lead to an outcry and the slogan “Keep mas in Christmas”.

I love the Xmas special, A Charlie Brown Christmas – Linus was on point when recited the Christmas story of the birth of Christ. I hope that many may watch that and become interested in learning more.

Check out church on Christmas Eve - there seems to be an extra layer of peace on that night –something we can all use. Merry Xmas!

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Christos: the Anointed One,

Messiah, Christ

Original Word: Χριστός, οῦ, ὁ

Definition: the Anointed One, Messiah, Christ