MM201 - Understanding the X in Xmas

Despite what you may have been told, Xmas is not a secular way from removing Christ from Christmas. Paul will explain why this is.

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television, and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel.

*Professor Paul*
Welcome to a brand new week a brand new episode of Morning Mindset, and we actually we are at a benchmark or we reached a kind of a high water mark. I guess you could say in the morning, we did episode 200 last week and now we're moving on. This is episode number 201. How did I come up with 200 things to talk about? I don't know but I did and here we are and we're advancing now as I speak the words into this microphone and this is getting ready to be broadcast out to you. It is now December, that's right.
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So we're getting ready for the season of Christmas. I know that your local Walmart probably had Christmas decorations out in September, but for me, I don't really start getting excited about the season of Christmas until it is December. Let's talk about understanding the X in Christmas. Now maybe it is you who is guilty of this or you know, someone, a relative or friend, many of us may have an aunt or a grandmother or a mother or an uncle is usually women that get all bunged up about this, but it could be mental.
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That has told you every year, it seems like that this person rails against the use of X, Mas, and they have contrived to convince you they have told you that that is a secular worldly way of trying to remove Christ from Christmas and you may have seen the bulletin boards or the reader boards out in front of the church that say things like let's keep Christ in Christmas and similar things, right? Well, people who say that don't know anything really about the history of the Christian church, and I'm going to head I'm going to go ahead and quote from an article called The X in Christmas literally means Christ.
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Yes, it's they're not trying to remove Christ from Christmas by using the X. The article goes "I guess you probably heard the phrase keep Christ in Christmas and so on and so forth. The idea always seems the same, that the usage of X is to rub out or remove Christ from the Christmas season, but that is not the case at all. The X actually comes from the Greek. Christos or Chi, C-H-I, meaning Christos or Christ." I remember when I was a kid, going to church during the Christmas season and I was raised in a Lutheran Church and if you know anything about the Lutheran Church, they are very big on Christmas trees because Martin Luther was really big on Christmas trees.
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Now, I know that there are people in the in the secular world or even in the Christian world that will debate whether or not Martin Luther was the first person to cut down a pine tree and bring it inside and decorate it and call it a Christmas tree. Some people say that that's not true that it goes all the way back to Pagan the blah-blah-blah, whatever I don't care but the fact the matter is if you grew up in Lutheran Church like I did they put up Christmas trees. Every year big ones and they decorated them with Christian themed ornaments and one of the Christian themed ornaments was a very decorative X, and you're like it's like the letter P over an X, and that is the Christos meaning Jesus Christ. It's shorthand for Jesus Christ.
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You may have seen the word X IA n used for Christian as a shorthand for Christian and that is perfectly legit. Is a perfectly legit thing to do. So I just wanted to touch on that real quick because and I know I have had my own relatives people that I'm very close with, you know for years have said things they like don't use and what's you know, what's weird or strange about this whole X Mas thing or Christmas thing? I don't recall growing up or in my youth anyone complaining about that.
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But my entire life as long as I can remember Merry Christmas has been abbreviated X-Mas. I remember being a child being an elementary school seeing that but I don't remember people complaining about it or getting on their high horse about it until recent history. I guess so before during this Advent season during this Christmas season during this holiday season. If you have one of those people in your lives that says, you know that admonishes you never to write out X Mas or that the use of X Mas is the worldly or secular way to try and steal Christmas away from Christ or remove Christ from the Christmas season.
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Understand this that's not the case at all, and in fact, it's Christians who started using the x or the Greek Chi. As Christos meaning Christ, so the X in Christmas is not it doesn't mean Xmas. It's not like an episode of Futurama where they refer to the holiday is Xmas and it was Christians actually who started using it. So the next time your beloved aunt Susie gets all bunged up and she wants to. She wants to tell you not to use that you might want to say alright, let's go ahead and educate ourselves a little bit and use the language properly and know what we're talking about, and maybe that's part of being a productive and positive individual maybe have it leading a positive and productive life.
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One of the ways we can do this is actually knowing what we're talking about. Think about that, what a cool concept that is. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, that's all I have for you guys today. It's the Christmas season. I hope you're you're getting excited about it. I hope that you have some I don't know where you're living in the world, but I hope if you live above the frost line that you get some snow for Christmas, and I know it's still early in the season. I'm perfectly aware of that, but I'm into it. Alright, Merry Christmas, and I will talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Thank you for spending time with us today. To get show notes, submit a topic request, for more from your host Paul G. Markel, visit MorningMindsetPodcast.com. That’s MorningMindsetPodcast.com. Please leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player, we appreciate your time & effort, and we look forward to reading your honest feedback.