Believe it or not
The abbreviation of Xmas for Christmas is not irreligious. The first letter of the word Christ in Greek is chi, which is identical to our X. Xmas was originally an ecclesiastical abbreviation that was used in tables and charts. (In the early days of printing, when font sizes were limited and type was set by hand, abbreviations and ditto marks were used
Merry X-mas Christians
liberally.) Xmas came into general use from the church!
Here are my crackpot ramblings, which you may hold up to ridicule this Yuletide season. Or perhaps you will discern a deeper wisdom in my sound and fury. In any event, you will be entertained, and possibly informed.
The written shortening Xmas for “Christmas” is quite old, and is part of a large group of abbreviations based on Greek letters.
If we recall, the letter H in the profane oath Jesus H. Christ is derived from the Greek letter eta (which looks like the Roman letter “H”), as the second letter of the word Jesus when written in Greek.
Similarly, the name Christ has for a thousand years been abbreviated as X, which is not the Roman letter “eks,” but the Greek letter “chi,” standing for the first letter of Christ when written in Greek as “Christos” (as transcribed into Roman letters). Some of the words using this abbreviation are X, Xp (Greek chi-rho, or “Chr”), and Xt for “Christ,” Xren for “christen,” and Xtian for “Christian.”
The use of Xmas for “Christmas” is first found in the sixteenth century, in the slightly expanded spelling X’temmas; the Xmas form was in use by the eighteenth century. The X has always been used in religious contexts, and was often lavishly decorated in manuscripts. The assumption that the abbreviation is somehow “weak” or “irreligious” since it “removes” the Christ from “Christmas” is a thoroughly modern idea.
In the beginning
The cross so overshadowed the manger—and the resurrection so overshadowed the incarnation—that neither scripture nor tradition has passed down a firm date for Christmas.
The origin of the date
In the year AD 274, when the winter solstice fell on December 25, the pagan Roman emperor Aurelian proclaimed December 25 as Natalis Solis Invicti, the festival of the birth of the invincible sun. In AD 354, Philocalus wrote a Christian martyrology that dates the nativity of Jesus Christ on December 25, and cites an earlier work as backup. From this we can deduce that Christmas was celebrated on the present date as early as AD 335 in Rome. It may be that Christmas was set on this day to supplant the pagan feast, or it may simply be a coincidence. Hippolytus and Tertullian, two early church fathers who lived before the Nicene Council set up our present method of determining the date of Easter, used March 25 as the date of Easter. If this is also the origin of considering March 25 to be the date of His conception, then it is possible that December 25 was calculated from March 25 (instead of the other way around) so that Christmas might be older than the Natilis Solis Invicti. However, there is no evidence dating earlier than AD 335 that Christmas was even celebrated, let alone on December 25.
The origin of our present celebration
Christmas failed to gain prominent or even universal recognition among Christians until quite recently. In some protestant-dominated areas, such as the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the celebration of Christmas was even legally banned, probably as part of their rejection of those parts of the traditional liturgical calendar that have no foundation in scripture. (Unlike with Easter, there is no New Testament record of a regular Christmas celebration, and no date is given for the nativity.) As late as the last century, Christmas had gained no great importance; it was not even a legal holiday. This explains why nineteenth-century readers found it credible that Scrooge could require Cratchit to come to work on Christmas Day and why in the nineteenth century the US Congress could meet on Christmas Day.
The origins of Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus, presents, and trees
Saint Nicholas Day (December 6) was the traditional day for giving gifts to children. It is still the day on which children receive gifts from St. Nicholas in the Netherlands. Epiphany (January 6) is, in the western Church, the commemoration of day on which the three kings presented the baby Jesus with gifts.
Saint Nicholas was the bishop of Myra in Lycia (in modern Turkey) sometime before AD 350. Nothing is known of his life except for the legends that have built up around him, but he was associated with kindness to children. He was a widely admired saint throughout the eastern and western churches. The Dutch custom (wherever they got it from) of giving presents to children on St. Nicholas Day was brought to America by early Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam (which was renamed New York when the British took over the colony). Santa Claus is the American pronunciation of Sinter Klaas, which was colloquial Dutch for Saint Nicholas.
In the US, gifts are now exchanged on Christmas Day in a sort of compromise of Dutch, German, and British gift-giving customs. The Christmas tree is a Christianized pagan custom that originated in Germany. German settlers introduced it in America. It became popular during the nineteenth century, and then later spread to Britain and Japan from the US.
