X-Mas



You've heard the classic story about the little boy who noticed the huge red-and-green sign spray-painted on a department story: "Happy Xmas." And he wondered aloud about the X. Why was it X-mas? And finally, in a forlorn voice, he asked his dad: "Did they cross Christ out of Christmas, Daddy?" And the father had never thought of it that way before, but finally nodded. "Yes, Son, I guess they did." And it makes you think.

X-Mas or Xmas is an archaic abbreviation of Christmas, derived from the 1550s abbreviation "X'temmas", later appearing as Xmas by the 1700s.

Complaint
It happens because such nasty libruls don't like saying Christ and hate Baby Jesus. It's similar to "Xians", which if you're unprepared for, may make you think that some atheistic bloggers are going mental over a Chinese gang.

The "X-mas" abbreviation is something the religious right loves to whine about, viz the secular humanist plot "to take the Christ out of Christmas."

In fact, the X stands for the Greek letter chi, which has been used as an abbreviation for Christ (it's the first letter of the Greek Χριστος, "Christos") since the Gospels were written. So really, the folks protesting "X-Mas" are trying to put a stop to a traditional Christian practice, not an atheist one.

Fun fact
Here is a fun fact which may or may not be related; The sale of porn spikes every year around Christmas time. Heterosexual activity also rises at that time.


 * 1) Is this due to X-Mas (specifically the number of porn barons who think it's funny and/or original to put out a DVD called "XXX-Mas")?
 * 2) Is this because people have time to look at stuff over the X-Mas holiday and places where there are interesting sexual or non-sexual things to do are closed?
 * 3) Is this just because it's cold in December in the Northern Hemisphere? What happens in Australia/New Zealand?

Not to be confused with
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