Calling Christmas Xmas

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frenchbeatle

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Not really sure where to put this, so if it needs to be moved, go ahead.

Is anyone else bothered when the upcoming holiday is sometimes called Xmas instead of Christmas? My coworkers, who are not very religious, keep referring to Santa and Xmas. For example, when I told them that my family isn’t big on gift giving on Christmas, they immediately said we are on Santa’s naughty list. We also had a holiday team lunch event last week, and we were all supposed to wear holiday sweaters. One of my coworkers, trying to be funny, took two post-it notes with Merry and Xmas on them and put them on his shirt. Funny, too how my supervisor is so big on decorating but insists on calling it Xmas.

To me, it seems like yet another way the secular world has of taking Christ out of Christmas. Anyone else?
 
frenchbeatle said:
Not really sure where to put this, so if it needs to be moved, go ahead.

Is anyone else bothered when the upcoming holiday is sometimes called Xmas instead of Christmas? My coworkers, who are not very religious, keep referring to Santa and Xmas. For example, when I told them that my family isn’t big on gift giving on Christmas, they immediately said we are on Santa’s naughty list. We also had a holiday team lunch event last week, and we were all supposed to wear holiday sweaters. One of my coworkers, trying to be funny, took two post-it notes with Merry and Xmas on them and put them on his shirt. Funny, too how my supervisor is so big on decorating but insists on calling it Xmas.

To me, it seems like yet another way the secular world has of taking Christ out of Christmas. Anyone else?
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My understanding is that putting an x in place of christ in christmas is not bad because x is the greek symbol of Christ. I heard this once in a homely. So if I am wrong someone please correct me.
 
st_lucy said:
My understanding is that putting an x in place of christ in christmas is not bad because x is the greek symbol of Christ. I heard this once in a homely. So if I am wrong someone please correct me.
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My priest gave me this same explanation one time when I said I too was bothered by it. I find it quite amusing that the same people that want to take Christ out of Christmas tend to use the abbrevation of “Xmas” and don’t even realize that they are still keeping Christ very much a part of the holy day.
 
X is the first letter in the biblical word for Christ (Xristos), which we pronounce as Kh. Non-Christians, though, use X to replace Christ because Christ offends them. X-mas is pronounced Ex-mas, not Kh-mas. It’s like calling a black man the N-word, except Christians don’t get all bent out of shape when insulted. You can even tell Christians that you’re not insulting them and they’ll believe you.
 
Steel_Pinwheel said:
X is the first letter in the biblical word for Christ (Xristos), which we pronounce as Kh. Non-Christians, though, use X to replace Christ because Christ offends them. X-mas is pronounced Ex-mas, not Kh-mas. It’s like calling a black man the N-word, except Christians don’t get all bent out of shape when insulted. You can even tell Christians that you’re not insulting them and they’ll believe you.
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Really? My priest said it was still ok to use “Xmas”.
 
When I saw the post I was interested to find out what others think. I use the Xmas a lot and I see nothing wrong with it. Now that I know the X means Christ, I am happy.
 
PatriceA said:
Really? My priest said it was still ok to use “Xmas”.
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Who do you see using Xmas? Is it people being respectful of Christianity, or is it people wanting to take Christ out of Christmas?

Why would anyone us Xmas as an abbreviation for Christmas, even if it were inoffensive? Is there not enough space on their page for the whole word, a word I think is rather beautiful?

Why would anyone use the term knowing that some people do see it as disrespectful? Do you use the term “negro” for blacks? It’s technically correct, but you know some people see it as disrespectful. Do you use the term nggr for blacks? Pronouncing Xmas as ex-mas is like saying nggr instead of negro because the Greek letter X should be pounced as Kh (as it is in the word Christ).

Many Church leaders work very hard at not disapproving of anything they don’t have to disapprove of.
 
As others have noted, the ‘X’ is really just a substitution of the Greek letter for the name of Christ. There is certainly nothing inherently offensive about that.

Nonetheless, I’m sure there are those out there who use the term with the intent of “taking Christ out of Christmas” because they are not familiar with the actual origins of the term. Perhaps we might be offended by those people in those circumstances. 🤷

Personally, I feel that getting all up in arms about “Happy Holidays” and “Merry Xmas” is counter-productive. We all know what Christmas is about. I don’t need the Walmart greeter to remind me. 😉 I’m far more concerned about the dangers of commercialism than the use of terms.
 
Steel_Pinwheel said:
X is the first letter in the biblical word for Christ (Xristos), which we pronounce as Kh. Non-Christians, though, use X to replace Christ because Christ offends them. X-mas is pronounced Ex-mas, not Kh-mas. It’s like calling a black man the N-word, except Christians don’t get all bent out of shape when insulted. You can even tell Christians that you’re not insulting them and they’ll believe you.
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What is the benefit to your suggesting that this is an insult?

Every one who uses ‘Xmas’ is not insulting. Heck, every non-Christian who uses ‘Xmas’ is not taking Christ out of Christmas. 😛

I would wager that there is more ‘Christ’ in the ‘Xmas’ than not.

Besides, there is lots of history of where the use of this ‘abbreviation’ came from. Please take a moment and get some research, rather than just gut feelings, ok?

We, as English speaking people, will say ‘Ex-mas’, but it doesn’t mean that any one is even attempting to take Christ out. 😉

The ‘Ex’, we say is actually the ‘Chi-’ from the Greek alphabet (an earlier response also points to this)

Calling Christmas as Ex-mas rather than Chi-mas is nothing like calling a Black person the N-word (how’d you get THAT in this discussion), :confused: it’s more like calling a Lie-ma bean a Lee-ma bean, since the beans are named for the city in Peru.

We are AMERICANS, and we speak the King’s English here. 👍
 
Steel_Pinwheel said:
Who do you see using Xmas? Is it people being respectful of Christianity, or is it people wanting to take Christ out of Christmas?

Why would anyone us Xmas as an abbreviation for Christmas, even if it were inoffensive? Is there not enough space on their page for the whole word, a word I think is rather beautiful?

Why would anyone use the term knowing that some people do see it as disrespectful? Do you use the term “negro” for blacks? It’s technically correct, but you know some people see it as disrespectful. Do you use the term nggr for blacks? Pronouncing Xmas as ex-mas is like saying nggr instead of negro because the Greek letter X should be pounced as Kh (as it is in the word Christ).

Many Church leaders work very hard at not disapproving of anything they don’t have to disapprove of.
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Considering most of my circle of friends and family is Catholic, I would say I see a lot of Catholics using “Xmas.”
 
PatriceA said:
Considering most of my circle of friends and family is Catholic, I would say I see a lot of Catholics using “Xmas.”
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Continuing with my previous analogy, blacks commonly use the n-word themselves.

Yet, I don’t see Christians using the term xmas. Look at this forum, it positively makes your circle of Catholic friends and family look abnormal. But, I bet it’s mostly your imagination that they use the term.
 
I’m a firm believer in extending people the benefit of the doubt by first assuming good will on their part. There’s no need to be cynical and immediately assume that anyone and everyone is most likely using the term offensively. Many people probably just use it because they see it used as an abbreviation. There probably isn’t a sinister motive on the part of the vast majority who use the term.

Of course, if someone demonstrates that they are using the term with that intent, it could be a different story.
 
Steel_Pinwheel said:
Continuing with my previous analogy, blacks commonly use the n-word themselves.

Yet, I don’t see Christians using the term xmas. Look at this forum, it positively makes your circle of Catholic friends and family look abnormal. But, I bet it’s mostly your imagination that they use the term.
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Wow, such charity. Well, they are my circle of friends and family, including my priest, so I guess I’m pretty lucky if they’re abnormal. I’ll be sure to tell my priest on Christmas, just how abnormal you think he is.
 
odhiambo said:
When I saw the post I was interested to find out what others think. I use the Xmas a lot and I see nothing wrong with it. Now that I know the X means Christ, I am happy.
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If you saw notes that priests write you’d soon notice that many of them usually abbreviate to Xmas. They know what it means. Maybe we could ask them to share that knowledge with the people?
 
Perhaps we should also be emphasizing the Mass aspect of Christ’s Mass (Christmas).
 
Joshua_P said:
Perhaps we should also be emphasizing the Mass aspect of Christ’s Mass (Christmas).
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This makes me think of what I heard from Mother Angelica last weekend:

She said that after all those years of the people waiting for their messiah, He comes and no one notices… but Herrod recognizes him first. 😛
 
Steel_Pinwheel said:
Who do you see using Xmas? Is it people being respectful of Christianity, or is it people wanting to take Christ out of Christmas?

Why would anyone us Xmas as an abbreviation for Christmas, even if it were inoffensive? Is there not enough space on their page for the whole word, a word I think is rather beautiful?

Why would anyone use the term knowing that some people do see it as disrespectful? Do you use the term “negro” for blacks? It’s technically correct, but you know some people see it as disrespectful. Do you use the term nggr for blacks? Pronouncing Xmas as ex-mas is like saying nggr instead of negro because the Greek letter X should be pounced as Kh (as it is in the word Christ).

Many Church leaders work very hard at not disapproving of anything they don’t have to disapprove of.
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To me there is absolutely no comparison between using Xmas for Christmas and ****** for Negro. None whatsoever!
 
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