Must be Santa

I am not a particularly religious person. In the last few decades the times I have been in a church have involved either one person lying down or two standing up. Sometimes I not sure which one had the happier ending. I have faith of a sort that there must be a greater power than I, either hairy thunderer, or cosmic muffin. But the idea of organized religion and all its attendant quirks and foibles (See: Catholic Priests and child molestation) for me-not so much. So knowing this you may find this little screed somewhat odd-a little out of place. But nonetheless I will let you in on something that I find very distasteful if not downright obscene. And that is the replacement of Christ in Christmas with an “X”. If there is a judgment day, and I do believe there will be, the people who put up signs and place ads in the newspapers eschewing the Christ for the X will be, in my humble opinion, hauled around by the short hairs and end up in the place run by the fellow with horns and a long tail. I can see St. Peter at the Pearly Gates quizzing them.
“You did what?”
“I wrote ad copy.”
“And at Christmas you used an X instead of the Bossman’s name?”
“Well, it took up less space.”
“You go to hell!”
But less space truly can’t be the sole reason why these heretics truncate the Hap Hap Happiest time of the year, can it? Think about it. C H R I S T M A S. Nine letters. T H A N K S G I V I N G. Twelve letters. You don’t see people writing Xgiving. Or Xster for Easter. Or Xanukkah for Hanukkah for that matter even if that wouldn’t exactly save any space. In point of fact the highest arbitrator of written style that I can think of, none other than the Gray Lady herself, the New York Times, is said to forbid the abbreviation. But a WIKI entry (And we can TRUST Wikipedia, right?) states: “Xmas comes to us from the Greek Xristos.-Christ. The X is standard usage in church symbology.” It goes on to state that X as an abbreviation for Christ has been in use since AD 1021. Well shut my mouth and call me Xim I still don’t like it, nor do I see the need. To me even the fact that John and Yoko wrote a song entitled “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” doesn’t give any one permission to be a copy cat. John Winston and Ms. Ono SANG Christmas in its entirety. I suspect the evil record company edited the title. I could be wrong.