That 'Xmas' Thing – We Christians Started It

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There has been a lot of talk in conservative, evangelical Christian circles over the past few years about “keeping Christ in Christmas.” From what appears to be online and on marquee signs, it looks as though most of the angst is over whether or not to use “Xmas” instead of “Christmas”, and on a broader scale whether or not the use of “Happy Holidays” is a good greeting. A bit of research, however, goes a long way to cool the rhetoric and our feelings.

Human beings have always used shortcuts in language when naming or describing things. If we are going to be pedantic, we must remember that the actual, proper name for December 25th is “The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ: Christmas Day.” No one uses that term, aside from a few who use it in worship bulletins and formal, written documents. So even the term “Christmas” is a shortcut.

Ancient people were no different. Latin inscriptions on important buildings and monuments often left out the vowels in words, and most scholars believe that the sign that Pilate placed above Jesus’ head while he was hanging on the cross was no different. The Church uses the letters “INRI” to remember this sign: “Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum.” One of the earliest such simplifications was the taking the first two letters of “Christ” in the Greek alphabet – chi and rho – and using them as a symbol, called a Christogram. So the Church has a long, long history of such things.

X-for-Christmas was another early simplification. Once you understand that the chi-rho symbol means “Christ”, it’s easy to move from there to “Xmas means Christmas”. Contrary to popular conspiracy theory, it’s not an attempt by unnamed “evil” people to “remove Christ from Christmas”. It is a very early simplification that came from the Church itself, as a way of quickly writing and identifying the celebration of Jesus’ birth. The use of the word "Xmas" can be traced to the year 1021 when "monks in Great Britain...used the X while transcribing classical manuscripts into Old English" in place of "Christ". The Oxford English Dictionary's "first recorded use of 'Xmas' for 'Christmas' dates back to 1551."

Still, we see non-Christian people using the shortcut and it makes us nervous. What about the attack on Christmas, and the replacing of “Merry Christmas” with “Happy Holidays”? Isn’t there something to that?

Well, yes and no. But mostly no.

The problem comes from the fact that the six weeks or so surrounding December 25th is a very popular time for celebrations. Thanksgiving Day has traditionally kicked off the holiday season here in the U.S. Of course, stores were selling decorations and playing music long before that. Still, Thanksgiving is definitely part of “the holidays”. New Year’s Day was historically the larger holiday, especially in Charles Dickens’ England, and it still garners a large celebration around the world. (In fact, it's largely Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" that began the trend of celebrating Christmas rather than New Years. That's why Scrooge was so put out that Bob Cratchett wanted Christmas Day off.) Epiphany falls on January 6th, and many Eastern Orthodox Christians keep it as a bigger celebration than Christmas Day. The Jewish festival of Hanukkah begins on December 10th, 2020 (and moves around a bit from year to year). The African-American festival of Kwanzaa falls during this time, as does the Pagan Yuletide celebrations, which begin on or around December 21st. Add to that the various other celebrations that happen around the world on or about the winter solstice (or Summer solstice, if you’re in the southern hemisphere) and suddenly December is quite crowded with holidays. Even if we only count the Christian observances, there are a full dozen between December 25th and January 5th, and that doesn't even count the ones between All Saints Day on November 1 and Christmas Day! Being the good Christians that we are, we want to extend grace and good cheer to all, even if they don’t know and follow Jesus. So perhaps “Happy Holidays” isn’t such a bad idea after all. But certainly, the recent uptick in “Happy Holidays” usage isn’t driven by the urge to be nice to potential disciples. It’s driven by the market, and the desire to be nice to potential customers.

True, there are people out there who would love nothing more than to have Christianity come to a quick end. There’s no telling why, either. So perhaps, on some level, there is a “war on Christmas” going on. But to this observer, it appears that the “war” is something that is perceived by a certain segment of Christians, but not really noticed by anyone else – least of all the supposed combatants, who are just trying to go about their holiday merrymaking just like everyone else.

But of course, there is a value in keeping Christmas as a Church holyday. The whole reason we celebrate Jesus’ birth on December 25th was that the Church decided to ambush and take over the Pagan holiday of Solstice (also known as Yule). Jesus was actually probably born in late September. But the Church wanted to replace the pagan holiday with the Christian one, as an evangelistic tool. “See? We can have fun, too!” Another thing to remember is that the Puritans who first came to America in 1620 and who are credited with the idea of the Thanksgiving holiday (again, part of "the holidays") hated Christmas, and part of their angst with the Church of England was over whether or not to include it on the church's calendar of annual observances. So within threads of Christianity, even conservative Christianity, there have been some strong pushes to have Christmas banned, or at least minimized.

Asking how we best go about keeping the letters “C-H-R-I-S-T” in the name of the holiday, how to retake and reclaim the popular mid-winter celebration for Jesus, is the wrong question.

A much better question is, “How can we keep Christ in the Christians?” Because if we can keep Christ in the Christians, then Christmas will take care of itself. Whether we wish others a “Merry Christmas” or a “Happy Holidays” or a “Blessed Advent” or a “Joyous Kwanzaa” or a “Happy Hanukkah” or a “Happy New Year” is irrelevant. The relevant point is that we are spreading God’s joy, love, and grace wherever we go because that is what Jesus has called us to do. If it takes a “Happy Holidays!” to do so, then so be it. And when we see “Xmas” somewhere, we can smile knowingly to ourselves, because all of this was our idea in the first place.

Happy Holidays!

The Rev. Joshua Allison serves as pastor of St. Mark United Methodist Church in Anniston, Ala. This post is republished with the author's permission from his Facebook page.