Merry Xmas
11:08 am 
2 Comments
Where I grew up, saying or writing Merry Xmas was a sure-fire way to label yourself an atheist. Many well intentioned believers, including myself, thought it was an attempt to “X” Christ out of Christmas.
Then I went to seminary and took Greek. In Greek, the first letter of Christ is a chi, which looks like our X. Many seminary students start abbreviating Jesus or Christ in their notes as a simple chi (X). So naturally when it comes to Christmas, “Christ” is abbreviated as “X” and it becomes Xmas.
Just another reminder to not judge peoples intentions. There might be more there if you are willing to listen.
If you didn’t know, now you do.
Merry Christmas!
I am glad you posted this. I was thinking about this the other day. It always seemed a little farfetched to me to say that if you use X in Xmas, you were taking Christ out of Christmas, but never had anything to back it up. Thanks for posting. What is the proper pronunciation of the word “chi”?
For pronunciation just think of your college greek sytem, like Chi Omega, etc. I am not that good of phonics, but another example is it sounds like the first syllable of kayak.