Some people think that if you abbreviate Christmas as X-mas, you are x-ing Jesus Christ out of Christmas. That’s actually a Christmas myth. It’s a simple misunderstanding of language. For centuries when making Bible study notes, our Christian ancestors used shorthand for the names of God and Christ using the first Greek letter of those names.
In Greek, God is Θεος (theos) and so a popular abbreviation for God has been the Greek letter Θ (pronounced either theeta, or thayta). Likewise, Christ in Greek is Χριστος (pronounced either Kristos or with a hard h-sound KHristos). So, the abbreviation for Christ is the first Greek letter X of his name (prounced either khye or khee), which looks like our English letter X. And so, a legitimate abbreviation for Christmas is Xmas. Rather than leaving Christ out with the abbreviation, I prefer to also remember the cross and Easter in the abbreviation Xmas. May your Xmas be one filled with every blessing!
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