Xmas is a common abbreviation of the word Christmas . It is sometimes pronounced /ˈɛksməs/, but it, and variants such as Xtemass, originated as handwriting abbreviations for the typical pronunciation /ˈkrɪsməs/. The "-mas" part is from the Latin-derived Old English word for Mass, while the "X" comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Χριστός which comes into English as "Christ".
There is a common misconception that the word Xmas stems from a secular attempt to remove the religious tradition from Christmas by taking the "Christ" out of "Christmas", but its use dates back to the 16th century.
"Xmas" is deprecated by some modern style guides, including those at the New York Times, The Times, The Guardian, and the BBC. Millicent Fenwick, in the 1948 Vogue's Book of Etiquette states that "'Xmas' should never be used" in greeting cards. The Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage
states that the spelling should be considered informal and restricted
to contexts where concision is valued, such as headlines and greeting
cards. The Christian Writer's Manual of Style, while acknowledging the ancient and respectful use of "Xmas" in the past, states that the spelling should never be used in formal writin.
Early use of "Xmas" includes Bernard Ward's History of St. Edmund's college, Old Hall (originally published circa 1755). An earlier version, "X'temmas", dates to 1551. Around 1100 the term was written as "Xp̄es mæsse" in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. "Xmas" is found in a letter from George Woodward in 1753. Lord Byron used the term in 1811, as did Samuel Coleridge (1801) and Lewis Carroll (1864). In the United States, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. used the term in a letter dated 1923.
Since at least the late 19th century, "Xmas" has been in use in various
other English-language nations. Quotations with the word can be found
in texts written in Canada, and the word has been used in Australia, and in the Caribbean. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage
stated that modern use of the term is largely limited to
advertisements, headlines and banners, where its conciseness is valued.
The association with commerce "has done nothing for its reputation",
according to the dictionary.
In the United Kingdom, the former Church of England Bishop of Blackburn, Alan Chesters, recommended to his clergy that they avoid the spelling. In the United States, in 1977 New Hampshire Governor Meldrim Thomson
sent out a press release saying that he wanted journalists to keep the
"Christ" in Christmas, and not call it Xmas—which he asserted was a "pagan" spelling of Christmas.
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| The labarum, often called the Chi-Rho, is a Christian symbol representing Christ. The symbol is often included on Chrismon trees by a wide variety of Christian peoples during the month of December. |
"for us as Christians, this is one of the most holy of the holidays, the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. And for people to take Christ out of Christmas. They're happy to say merry Xmas. Let's just take Jesus out. And really, I think, a war against the name of Jesus Christ."
Martin likewise relates the use of "Xmas" to his growing concerns of
increasing commercialization and secularization of one of Christianity's
highest holy days.
Bratcher posits that those who dislike abbreviating the word are
unfamiliar with a long history of Christians using X in place of
"Christ" for various purposes.
The word "Christ"
and its compounds, including "Christmas", have been abbreviated in
English for at least the past 1,000 years, long before the modern "Xmas"
was commonly used. "Christ" was often written as "Xρ" or "Xt"; there
are references in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as far back as 1021. This X and P arose as the uppercase forms of the Greek letters χ (Ch) and ρ (R) used in ancient abbreviations for Χριστος (Greek for "Christ"), and are still widely seen in many Eastern Orthodox icons depicting Jesus Christ. The labarum, an amalgamation of the two Greek letters rendered as ☧, is a symbol often used to represent Christ in Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christian Churches.
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and the OED Supplement
have cited usages of "X-" or "Xp-" for "Christ-" as early as 1485. The
terms "Xtian" and less commonly "Xpian" have also been used for
"Christian". The OED further cites usage of "Xtianity" for "Christianity" from 1634. According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, most of the evidence for these words comes from "educated Englishmen who knew their Greek".
In ancient Christian art, χ and χρ are abbreviations for Christ's name. In many manuscripts of the New Testament and icons, Χ is an abbreviation for Χριστος, as is XC (the first and last letters in Greek, using the lunate sigma); compare IC for Jesus in Greek.
Other proper names containing the name "Christ" besides those
mentioned above are sometimes abbreviated similarly, either as "X" or
"Xt", both of which have been used historically, e.g., "Xtopher" or "Xopher" for "Christopher", or "Xtina" or "Xina" for the name "Christina".
In the 17th and 18th centuries, "Xene" and "Exene" were common spellings for the given name Christine. The American singer Christina Aguilera has sometimes gone by the name "Xtina". Similarly, Exene Cervenka has been a noted American singer-songwriter since 1977.
This usage of "X" to spell the syllable "kris" (rather than the sounds "ks") has extended to "xtal" for "crystal", and on florists' signs to "xant" for "chrysanthemum",
even though these words are not etymologically related to "Christ":
"crystal" comes from a Greek word meaning "ice" (and not even using the
letter χ), and "chrysanthemum" comes from Greek words meaning "golden
flower", while "Christ" comes from a Greek word meaning "anointed".
