![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tire, machine, me, tired
Dec. 9th, 2009 07:43 pmTire. Mailed it. ( OK, UPS'd it. And some other errands, including sewing machine updates. )
Oh, I have a question for the collective mind of the Internet.
Xmas.
My store manager objected to my consistent use of the "Xmas" abbreviation for Christmas. (We're doing a lot of cards; sometimes we have to print from a digital file. I name them all familyname_xmas, to differentiate that they are Christmas card orders [some families are regulars and as such have folders with orders already in them] and warn whoever's printing that it's going to need the 8x10/5x7 paper.) She feels that the X is used to remove Christ from it, and as such, it is an anti-Christian way of referring to the holiday.
I was completely shocked by this. I have always thought that X stands for Christ because that's the first letter in the Greek word Christos-- X is Chi, and so Jesus was referred to by the Chi-Rho symbol for the first two letters of his title. (Jesus being his name, and Christ being his title.)
I thought about it. My first experience with Xmas as a concept is that the neighbor down the street grew pine trees to cut and sell for Christmas trees. I remember asking Mom what the "Xmas trees" on his sign were. She explained that the X stood for Christ, so it was just a short way of saying Christmas, so it'd fit on the little plywood sign.
I'm trying to remember now if she ever used it. My mother is Protestant, from a reasonably religious family, though something of a Creaster herself; she and Dad agreed before they married that she would let him raise us Catholic, and she'd keep her mouth shut for the most part. So she just came to Christmas and Easter with us, and stopped going to her own services except occasionally. (When we were really little she'd take us to the Methodist church right down the street, but the only thing I remember is the color of the carpets (teal mottled with black, very short pile-- I was sitting under the pews messing around with my toys), as once I was five, off to the Catholic church-- and Sunday school-- I went. As a teenager entering a Protestant church with my mother for some her-side-of-the-family event I was flabbergasted by the total lack of kneelers and asked, stupidly, where we were supposed to kneel. Mom was kind of horrified. I am not the quickest on the uptake, in general.)
So anyway. I know fine well that if it were an anti-Christian thing, my mother never would have used it. She's not the most devout and is very much of the modern-American-keep-it-to-yourself school of politeness, where religion and politics are things you only really discuss if you're trying to start a fight. But I can't remember if she ever did. I know I've seen it in my father's handwriting... I think on cardboard boxes to store ornaments. So I know he doesn't think it's offensive. But then, he's not the quickest on the uptake for those things either.
I derailed the manager, anyway, somewhat unintentionally, with a digression into the origin of the Jesus fish thing. I am quite pleased that Wikipedia backs me up-- it is a drawing of the phonetic rendering of an acronym of Jesus's name and title. (Jesus the Son of God in Greek is I.C.Th.S., which spells "fish" in Greek.) And that was a secret symbol when Christians were a persecuted minority. I thought the X was too, but I think it's just a simple initial.
At any rate. I know of one person who uses "Xtianity" to refer to Christianity as a decidedly hostile thing, but I didn't think that the word itself was hostile, more that the context was. Am I just an idiot to not be offended by it? And am I blowing smoke up my boss's ass in defending my ignorant use of it? I really just thought it was an abbreviation, and given such lengthy historical precedent, a not-irreverent one.
But XR knows, I can certainly be obtuse.
Oh, I have a question for the collective mind of the Internet.
Xmas.
My store manager objected to my consistent use of the "Xmas" abbreviation for Christmas. (We're doing a lot of cards; sometimes we have to print from a digital file. I name them all familyname_xmas, to differentiate that they are Christmas card orders [some families are regulars and as such have folders with orders already in them] and warn whoever's printing that it's going to need the 8x10/5x7 paper.) She feels that the X is used to remove Christ from it, and as such, it is an anti-Christian way of referring to the holiday.
I was completely shocked by this. I have always thought that X stands for Christ because that's the first letter in the Greek word Christos-- X is Chi, and so Jesus was referred to by the Chi-Rho symbol for the first two letters of his title. (Jesus being his name, and Christ being his title.)
I thought about it. My first experience with Xmas as a concept is that the neighbor down the street grew pine trees to cut and sell for Christmas trees. I remember asking Mom what the "Xmas trees" on his sign were. She explained that the X stood for Christ, so it was just a short way of saying Christmas, so it'd fit on the little plywood sign.
I'm trying to remember now if she ever used it. My mother is Protestant, from a reasonably religious family, though something of a Creaster herself; she and Dad agreed before they married that she would let him raise us Catholic, and she'd keep her mouth shut for the most part. So she just came to Christmas and Easter with us, and stopped going to her own services except occasionally. (When we were really little she'd take us to the Methodist church right down the street, but the only thing I remember is the color of the carpets (teal mottled with black, very short pile-- I was sitting under the pews messing around with my toys), as once I was five, off to the Catholic church-- and Sunday school-- I went. As a teenager entering a Protestant church with my mother for some her-side-of-the-family event I was flabbergasted by the total lack of kneelers and asked, stupidly, where we were supposed to kneel. Mom was kind of horrified. I am not the quickest on the uptake, in general.)
So anyway. I know fine well that if it were an anti-Christian thing, my mother never would have used it. She's not the most devout and is very much of the modern-American-keep-it-to-yourself school of politeness, where religion and politics are things you only really discuss if you're trying to start a fight. But I can't remember if she ever did. I know I've seen it in my father's handwriting... I think on cardboard boxes to store ornaments. So I know he doesn't think it's offensive. But then, he's not the quickest on the uptake for those things either.
I derailed the manager, anyway, somewhat unintentionally, with a digression into the origin of the Jesus fish thing. I am quite pleased that Wikipedia backs me up-- it is a drawing of the phonetic rendering of an acronym of Jesus's name and title. (Jesus the Son of God in Greek is I.C.Th.S., which spells "fish" in Greek.) And that was a secret symbol when Christians were a persecuted minority. I thought the X was too, but I think it's just a simple initial.
At any rate. I know of one person who uses "Xtianity" to refer to Christianity as a decidedly hostile thing, but I didn't think that the word itself was hostile, more that the context was. Am I just an idiot to not be offended by it? And am I blowing smoke up my boss's ass in defending my ignorant use of it? I really just thought it was an abbreviation, and given such lengthy historical precedent, a not-irreverent one.
But XR knows, I can certainly be obtuse.
