What do you know about Xmas?
Long before Elon changed Twitter to X, there was Xmas. Now this change didn’t have any advertisers jumping ship or lead to a rich man telling them to “Go f%*& themselves”, but it is an interesting story that my help you one day on Jeopardy when the final category is “ Late December Christian Religious Holiday Abbreviation Origins “ comes up and you only have the lead by $1.
The first two letters in the Greek word for Christ are chi (X) and ‘rho’ (P) The first appearance of this abbreviation for Christmas dates to 1021, “when an Anglo-Saxon scribe saved himself space by writing XPmas,” Parchment paper was quite expensive, so any techniques for saving space were welcome. The abbreviation stuck and eventually was shortened to Xmas.
In the late 1500s, the ECGC (European Chia Growers Collective) tried to garner interest in ChiMas, marketing their seasonal “ChiaNog”, which didn’t catch on. Probably because it’s kinda gross.
Finally, in 1972, ChihuahuaMas was created, but was short lived due to people not being able to pronounce the holiday correctly and their mascot not being impressed by the dorky outfit.
And now you know…Now on to Part II of this last minute Friday post.
Now that the Christmas displays in the stores have been up for weeks, it’s about time we entered December. If you are not one who celebrates Christmas, this can be annoying time of year. If you do celebrate Christmas, this can be an annoying time of year.
I could go on a humorous tirade about Christmas carols/songs, consumerism, dysfunctional family gatherings, and the ongoing debate on whether it’s still OK to say “Merr — ”
But wouldn’t you much rather read about the nutritional value of the potato?
I thought so…
Leon Stevens is a multi-genre author, composer, guitarist, songwriter, and an artist, with a Bachelor of Music and Education. He published his first book of poetry, Lines by Leon: Poems, Prose, and Pictures in January 2020, followed by a book of original classical guitar compositions, Journeys, and a short story collection of science fiction/post-apocalyptic tales called The Knot at the End of the Rope and Other Short Stories. His newest publications are the novella trilogy, The View from Here, which is a continuation of one of his short stories, and a new collection of poetry titled, A Wonder of Words.
My new book page: http://books.linesbyleon.com/
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Originally published at https://linesbyleon.com on December 1, 2023.
