I hate Xmas

I hate Xmas, but I love CHRISTmas. I hate how people replace CHRIST with an X. If you do not believe in Jesus Christ, the reason we celebrate CHRISTmas by the way, then please do not celebrate it. Or if for some reason you think it is cute to put a big X in the place of Christ then I would rather you not celebrate my Lord's birthday. Especially if you are not even going to acknowledge his holy name. If you want to celebrate a new holiday called Xmas then get congress to pass it as a national holiday and have at it.
Rant off. That feels better

:goodjob: Couldn't have said it better myself!

Holidays mean different things to different people....

It is good to see you are feeling better. A little Righteous indignation helps me feel better at times. Christ is the reason for the season for me and mine.
Topper

i like xmas cause i can spell it good.but i love christ

Topper said:

It is good to see you are feeling better. A little Righteous indignation helps me feel better at times. Christ is the reason for the season for me and mine.
Topper

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Thanks Topper. I feel about the same but I am already seeing Xmas show up everywhere and it got to me today.
I could have been less confrontational with my rant I guess.
Maybe I should have just asked why people replace Christ with a big X.
For the record I do not hate anyone for using Xmas. I just hate the use of Xmas instead of Christmas.

LifeNRA: I completely agree with you...I hate seeing it spelled that way too.

I do recall many years ago seeing something to the effect of Chirst being replaced with "X" to signify His sacrifice on the cross. I was very young and do not remember where I heard that...and in my cynical older years, I think maybe it was simply some way for "people" to justify spelling it that way.

Anyway, yes...it is a CHRISTMAS show...not a "winter" show or whatever the politically correct term is now...

I was at the PX last year and found it was quite a challenge even to find a true Christmas card. Most of them were "Season's Greetings" or "Happy Yuletide" or something to that effect...very upsetting.

JM-99

The "X" is not meant to blot out Christ. It's an abbreviation of the Greek ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ("Christos"), spelled chi, rho, iota, sigma, tau, omicron, sigma. The capital Chi looks like an X.

BTW, the fish as a Christian symbol is a Greek acrostic. ΙΧΘΥΣ ("Ichthus") is Greek for "fish", spelled iota, chi, theta, upsilon, sigma. The acrostic is the Greek phrase "Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς Θεοῦ Υἱὸς Σωτήρ" ("Iesous Christos Theou Uios Soter"), which means "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior".

Yeah, I'm a classics geek. Too much school will do that to you.

For some reason, Hookd_On_Phonton's post made me think that X-mas = ichthyology. The thought of folks gathering together once a year to celebrate the study of fish seemed odd.

I do agree though, I find it most bothersome when someone pronounces it "X-Mas"

Hookd_On_Photons said:

The "X" is not meant to blot out Christ. It's an abbreviation of the Greek ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ("Christos"), spelled chi, rho, iota, sigma, tau, omicron, sigma. The capital Chi looks like an X.

BTW, the fish as a Christian symbol is a Greek acrostic. ΙΧΘΥΣ ("Ichthus") is Greek for "fish", spelled iota, chi, theta, upsilon, sigma. The acrostic is the Greek phrase "Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς Θεοῦ Υἱὸς Σωτήρ" ("Iesous Christos Theou Uios Soter"), which means "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior".

Yeah, I'm a classics geek. Too much school will do that to you.

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Yep, couldn't agree more. There is a reason behind it with a spiritual meaning. On the other hand, seems like our culture has tried to secularize it, making it into $$$$$, holiday. Interestingly, Halloween is the second bigest $$$$$ holiday.

I much prefer keeping holidays, holy.

well... it always was "Navidad" for me. I only started using Xmas after seeing it around, thought it was 'net-speak. Speaking a couple of languages will do that to you.

Hooked' that was nice, thank you. That said, and in consideration to LifeNRA, I will use Christmas.

I have always and will always spell it "Christmas", not "X-mas" or "Xmas".
Just look on my website under the Christmas light sets and lighted ornaments category, and you'll see that I do not spell it any way other than "Christmas".
The only time I've ever spelled it "Xmas" is on my website's main menu, and that was simply because there was not enough room to spell it "Christmas".
I think I'll go change that right now, room or no room.

Hookd_On_Photons said:

The "X" is not meant to blot out Christ. It's an abbreviation of the Greek ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ("Christos"), spelled chi, rho, iota, sigma, tau, omicron, sigma. The capital Chi looks like an X.

BTW, the fish as a Christian symbol is a Greek acrostic. ΙΧΘΥΣ ("Ichthus") is Greek for "fish", spelled iota, chi, theta, upsilon, sigma. The acrostic is the Greek phrase "Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς Θεοῦ Υἱὸς Σωτήρ" ("Iesous Christos Theou Uios Soter"), which means "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior".

Yeah, I'm a classics geek. Too much school will do that to you.

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I disagree: not with your "Greek Geek" translation but with the fact most of us Rednecks do not speak English very well much less Greek. I do not intend to disrespect you at all; in fact I am impressed you know Greek. I hope you understand I can admire your post and still prefer Christ instead of a X or any other letter.
Topper

While I will always spell it out Christmas, to remind myself, if not others, of the holiness of the holiday, I, too knew the reasoning behind the use of the X.

The problem is that too many abbreviate it for the ease of use, not understanding the reason it was used initially.

As for the holiday, I would actually prefer it to be said Christ Mass, to remind us even more of the reason. To those who would say that pronunciation Catholocizes the use, the simple truth is that if you want total correctness, it should be said that way.

A few years ago, one of my friends ask his 5 year old why we celebrated Christmas, and he said, "Because it's Jesus birthday", when he followed up with, why do we call it Christmas, the son said, because Kris Kringle comes!!
Obviously missing, the "t" in his pronunciation, an easily arrived at conclusion from some 5 year olds, I guess. I was impressed he knew Kris Kringle as Santa Claus, but then his dad pointed out that there are LOTS of Christmas cartoons on Nickolodeon that equate the 2.

Enough, from me anyway.

Bill

While I'm somewhat athiest, I still spell Christmas right

:shakehead I admit i'm guilty.. Pardon my ignorance. X'mas is used as a short-form, not meant at all to be disrespectful.

Now i've learnt to be more culturally sensitive.. I'll change it.

If anything really annoys me about Christmas, its the Coke cola conjured guy in the red suit which really has nothing to do with christmas but making $$$$$.
Good thing here in Sweden, coke sales goes down over Christmas(no matter what they do:lolsign since the swedes have their own 'julmust' which roughly translate to christmas root beer. It is a type of rootbeer. Taste has been described as a cross between coke and rootbeer.

A wonderful thread LifeNRA! I must admit I'm guilty of doing this "X'mas" thing. Thank you for reminding me. It's is so easy to take for granted and forget about these "little" things.

I too wonder what has become of this holy season and sometimes my cynism gets the better of me. Again, it's so very easy to just dismiss the occassion altogether as another money-pit season where "gifts" and commercial/artificial generosity is the theme. I forget that about 2,000 somewhere in Palestine, God's mercy allowed SUPREME COMPASSION to be born in this world so that he could die for all of us later on.

Xmas' is not a modern, disrespectful abbreviation of the word 'Christmas.'