Matt Jones’ Random Acts of Verbiage » Get the X out of X-mas!

Have you ever heard someone say that? Do you ever write “X-mas”? Are you offended by the use of “Xmas”?

Well you oversensitive types have nothing to fear! The abbreviated form of Christmas is not some ploy by those darned atheists to remove Christ from the celebration of his own birthday.

Ἰησοῦς Χριστός

Notice something in the second word? The big “X”? That is the Greek capital letter Chi, the first letter in the word Christ.

Χ and/or ΧP (P is the capital of ρ [rho], the second letter in Christ) were/are common abbreviations used for Christ (at Regent I used Χ/χ and Θ/θ [Theta for θεός theos, God] a lot in taking notes). Saying “X-mas” is still saying Christmas. Even if some people are using the abbreviation to denounce Christ, they are, in fact, still proclaiming him. Enjoy the irony.

Some of you may still have to deal with Christmas being a reclamation of a pagan holiday, but at least you can still keep X-Mas.

Trackbacks & Pings:

From the Anchor Hold on 27 Dec 2006 at 7:36 pm Said:

Timothy Radcliffe and Simone Weil, he write of how we can overcome being “fretful about many things” [that's Luke 10:21]. This old-time theology student, with notebooks full of “Xp” and “Xpian” and “Xp-ity” got a bit of a kick from Matt Jones’ post Get the X out of X-mas! at Random Acts of Verbiage. The Evangelical Ecologist is sharing the true meaning of Christmas with his green friends this year in a post called The Uniqueness of Christian Ecology — The Messiah. Before we can truly address pollution in the air or

Matt Jones’ Random Acts of Verbiage » And the Word became flesh… on 23 Dec 2007 at 11:33 pm Said:

[...] Get the X out of X-mas!: A look at why Christians shouldn’t be offended by “XMas.” [...]

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day | Matt Jones’ Random Acts of Verbiage on 21 Dec 2008 at 9:34 pm Said:

[...] Previous Christmas Posts: I Celebrate the Day by Relient K Dickens Speaks Truth Get the X out of X-Mas! Always Winter but Never Christmas Christmas a Pagan [...]

In Which I Talk about Christmas | Matt Jones’ Random Acts of Verbiage on 21 Dec 2009 at 8:51 pm Said:

[...] are a few of my other selected Christmas posts: Get the X out of X-mas – Dickens speaks Truth and Christmas a pagan holiday? Also, if Christmas is putting you in the [...]

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