In recent years many retailers have come under fire for using the word \u201choliday\u201d in substitution for the word \u201cChristmas\u201d in their advertising. But some have problems with the term \u201cXmas\u201d as well. Just ask gift shop owner Trent Wilson. He meant no harm when he used the term \u201cXmas\u201d in a 2007 ad he placed in a local newspaper. But one simple letter to the editor unleashed a torrent of bad publicity that nearly wiped out his business.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe simply ran out of room in the ad,\u201d Trent explains. \u201cI didn\u2019t mean to offend anyone. The ad was supposed to announce the arrival of LED lights<\/a> that were in short supply and high demand. Instead it kept people from coming into the shop altogether during a critical time of the year because the word spread about how we were politically incorrect. Once the letter hit the paper it was all I heard about for days.\u201d<\/p>\n It is a common misunderstanding. People see the word \u201cXmas\u201d and they automatically think that Christ has been taken out of \u201cChristmas\u201d.<\/p>\n Nothing can be further from the truth.<\/p>\n Origins of the word \u201cChristmas\u201d date back centuries, when Latin was the official language of the Roman Church. Christmas<\/a> was called \u201cDies Natalis Domini\u201d, meaning \u201cBirthday of the Lord\u201d. More formally, Christmas<\/a> was known as \u201cFestum Natavitatis Domini Jesu Christi\u201d or \u201cFeast of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ\u201d. In the 11th and 12th centuries more official church ceremonies were introduced as part of the holiday celebrations and they were called, among other things, \u201cChrist\u2019s Mass\u201d. Over time, the natural contraction of that term brought us the word we know today as \u201cChristmas\u201d.<\/p>\n The letter \u201cX\u201d is better thought of as a symbol when considering its use in conjunction with Christmas<\/a>. \u201cX\u201d has been used in Greek to represent Christ dating back more than 1000 years. While some incorrectly assume that the letter \u201cX\u201d is symbolic of the cross where Jesus was crucified it indeed was commonly used in antiquity to denote Christ in words like \u201cChristian\u201d (Xtian). There are literally hundreds of examples of the term used in official and personal correspondence, reference material and even ancient written copies of the Bible, all using \u201cX\u201d as a symbol for Christ.<\/p>\n It is important to note that even if \u201cX\u201d is used to represent Christmas<\/a> it is not pronounced \u201cecks-mas\u201d. The term \u201cXmas\u201d is still pronounced as \u201cChristmas\u201d. And when using \u201cX\u201d in the word Christmas<\/a> it is always capitalized.<\/p>\n Though an ancient term, \u201cXmas\u201d still creates modern controversy. Some believe that atheist advocacy groups now adopt the term \u201cXmas\u201d because it removes \u201cChrist\u201d from their secular celebrations of the season. Like those who choose to be offended by the term \u201cXmas\u201d it instead showcases their ignorance of the symbol and where it comes from.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In recent years many retailers have come under fire for using the word \u201choliday\u201d in substitution for the word \u201cChristmas\u201d in their advertising. But some have problems with the term \u201cXmas\u201d as well. Just ask gift shop owner Trent Wilson. He meant no harm when he used the term \u201cXmas\u201d in a 2007 ad he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":642,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","iawp_total_views":33,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,3],"tags":[38,37],"class_list":["post-641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christmas-history","category-christmas-past","tag-christmas-history-2","tag-xmas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}