Top 9 Reasons Why It’s Ok To Say Merry XMAS!!!
1. I love baby Jesus too but he didn’t name Christmas…Christmas. We did.
2. If this offends you then I suggest you change your greeting to “May you have the most joyous season of celebrating the birth of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”. It is less confusing that Merry Christmas.
3. I find it more insulting that people get mad at Bart Millard for saying Xmas and have no idea that the pagan origins of their gift exchanges started in ancient Babylon when the feast of the Son of Isis (Goddess of Nature) was celebrated on December 25. Raucous partying, gluttonous eating and drinking, and gift-giving were traditions of this feast.
4. I’m thinking we should celebrate Christmas when it actually happened. More or less around September.
The shepherds were not tending their sheep in the middle of a Judean winter. I promise.
5. I’m not taking Christ out of Christmas when I say Xmas… I am giving more attention to the word “mas” which in the true language of God means “more”
6. I love Jesus. If you are concerned with people seeing a Christian take “Christ” out of the word “Christmas” let’s just say it Merry Jesusmas so that everybody will get it.
7. On twitter it is a much better way of saving your character count. 
8. Let’s face it. Jesus is the X Factor! What A Better Way To Say It!!!
9. I hate lists of 10 so I’m gonna stop at 9…Or really 8.
RAIN IT DOWN
Right on.
Jesusmas it is–good call! I’m Dreaming of a White Jesusmas and How the Grinch Stole Jesusmas sound good to me.
ha! my favorite part? “I am giving more attention to the word ‘mas’ which in the true language of God means ‘more’.”
and you might like to mention that whole “x stands for xristos” thing.
I was going to bring that us as well. Xristos is Messiah in Greek.
Jesusmas! Love it!
Love it. #10- because “X” is a symbol for “Christ” in Greek. Where do they think we got the X from anyway?
I was just about to say this!
I kinda have to smile when I see the lovely humans going nuts on Bart.
I have no idea why society thinks we’re nuts.
or maybe we should start saying glenbeckmas or palinmas…seems that they are lifted up on the same level as Jesus these days.
Too far? Ya probably…sorry about that.
Kyle, now that is funny. If anyone has a messiah complex, it is the annointed one, the O himself. but I digress. Merry Jesusmas
Well yes, you could insert his name in there.
But the people who freak out about saying xmas would sure to think the apocolypse is happening if we said obamamas
I think X is meant to represent Christ. It is the first letter in ??????? which is Christ. Not that big a deal Xians.
Because of people getting offended of both ways… I use Cmas. It’s just as simple, less offensive, and I can still fit in in twitter.
I love this. But you left out my fav reason….x stands for Chi in the Greek and the early Christians used it to mean Christ, even in Bibles to save scribing extra letters.
Jesusmas and Jesus is the X Factor. Hahahaha
I’ll do Matt one better. JCmas. I like it.
/how do folks find the time to complain about the use of X in between the JCmas shopping?
I don’t hate on anyone that says/writes XMas & my head knows that it’s completely fine, but the legalistic little Baptist girl in me still silently cringes when i see it. I can’t explain it.
Merry Christmas! (see, i did it again-y’all pray for me)
Thanks for helping me to chip away the ingrained legalism. I’m prone to being offended by “Xmas,” but you made some really good points!
There is a statistically significant overlap between people who want to demonstrate their knowledge of Greek and people who don’t read prior comments.
As a Catholic I think the “Mass” part of the name is what is more lacking in emphasis. Same with All Hallow’s Eve, but I digress.
No need to paganize the 25th, Los, it is nine months after the annunciation after all (pretty logical) and the date has been around since before the 4th century. Alternate dates include January 6th/7th (Epiphany) and March 25th (the Annunciation).
I’m not sure where the Isis/Mithras/Saturnalia bunk started, but my guess would be the years when English Calvinists were arguing that celebrating Christmas was unchristian in the late Victorian Era.
Don’t forget this nugget:
“X” comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word ???????, translated as “Christ” and has been used as an abbreviation for Christ since the mid-16th century.
i normally read via google reader. but i thought this rant was too awesome to NOT post.
So yeah, in my haste I didn’t notice all of the other “nuggets” in the comments.
“The shepherds were not tending their sheep in the middle of a Judean winter. I promise”
So, what did the shepherds do with their sheep during the winter?
Let them die
Bwahahahahhhahahah!
Hahahahah, nice.
Poor sheep! LOL
Los, if you were using the ‘true language of God’ wouldn’t you be saying Navidad?
Feliz Navidad to you and yours.
What’s funny to me is that it seems like poeple are worried more with not taking “Christ” out of Christmas than they are with making sure that He’s in their lives and that they’re REALLY FOLLOWING HIM! I used to be an anti “Xmas” person, but I’ve come to realize that we live in a society that wants to take him out of everything so a word doesn’t really make a difference to me. I just make sure he’s the center of my CHRISTmas celebration (lol) (not to mention that your 8 reasons make a lot of sense) . And when it comes to arguing the real date, I say “who cares?”, shouldn’t we be celebrating Christ every day of our lives?
Raf I love your answer. so true
If we spent more time in Love we would have less time to hate and judge. thank you
AMEN brutha!! Preach it!!
Seriously love this list!
Good times.
Merry Xmas!
Excellent Post. Simply excellent. #DoingMyWorkForMe
the x in xmas originated with the “chi rho” symbol which has been a christogram since there have been christians. saying Xmas is still keeping the christ in christmas.
even if it wasn’t, people should relax a little bit… there are much bigger problems out there. in america we’re giving billions of dollars in gifts this year when there are people without clean water or sufficient housing and shelter. check out the advent conspiracy, much better way of spending ones energy than worrying about how people address XMAS!
Mike, Praise God I love the way you think. People keep thinking we are the center of the world (not) and our language misses many things. X being one of them. Makes me think of some bitter person sitting all alone thinking of something else to be bitter about. GOD is love and good and he wants us to give him the sacrifice of our lips. ( praise him) and we can’t do that unless we are happy. so don’t worry, be happy
Ummm… not to mention that Jesus has been abbreviated with an ‘x’ for the last 1,000 years…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmas
you’re welcome
oh sorry mike and others guess I echoed yall!
Jesusmas is the winner. Love it!
Did u guys ever get those edited Times Square photos for your Xmas card?
I can’t even believe we get all worked up over a holiday greeting. No wonder we all have so much stress in our lives…
LOVE LOVE LOVE that..
a) you stopped your list at 9..I mean, 8. Way to think outside the box.
b) that you’ve made this list. Brilliant thinking. AGAIN, way to think outside the box.
c) If people would stop to think — Christ was Jesus’ title. He is Jesus THE Christ.
So glad I found you. Thanks for posting!!!
The “X” in “Xmas” represents the Greek letter chi, which is the initial letter of Christos – the Greek for Christ. I never really thought anything bad about using Xmas, until someone came up with this “fad”, to put Christ back into Christ-mas. It still has the same meaning to me.
God love us. I think we’ll find anything to argue about.
Aren’t the Xmas offendees the same ones who won’t read any other version than the KJV because they misinterpret that verse in Revelations? Because we all know that God spoke everything into being using only the King’s English.
LOL really loud. love it shayne ha ha
Every one of these reasons seem valid to me. I for one never had a problem w/ the word Xmas. Even as a kid I questioned why people made a fuss about taking the Christ out of Christmas. I heard someone then say that the X is simply a cross rearranged!
Christ is never really out of Christmas as long as you know in your heart the reason for the season. Anyone that needs to debate it & get worked up about a word or lack there of just needs to fill the void in their life, a life that wouldn’t be empty if Jesus was really in it.
Love the 8 reasons & will kindly guide people to view if they have a problem w/ Xmas!
All that bus time has really cleared your head bro! We’ll done…
Merry Jesusmas! LOL! Cute.
Every now and then, someone will point out that Christmas is a take off of the Roman holiday Saturnalia and that Easter came from the word Ishtar. My response is always “So?” Today, we’re not celebrating the pagan elements; we’re celebrating Christ, so, so? (Isis was Egyptian, by the way.)
You nailed it, Los!!! You nailed it! Bart is not the only person who has an explanation, even though one shouldn’t even be needed! The naysayers are gonna say nay no matter what you or Bart or I give as a response. And I say,”Oh, Well”.
Amen and amen and amen!!
I just found this out recently … as the Puritans settled in America, they forbid Christmas celebrations because it had evolved into a season of wild parties back in the old country. For a time, if you were caught celebrating Christmas in Massachusetts, you were fined 5 shillings. (wonder if there were Christmas police) And Christmas was not recognized as a holiday in the USA until 1870. Until then, businesses were open and Congress routinely met on Christmas day. It was just another workday, so why is it so ‘important’ to our faith today to not only celebrate Xmas, but make sure we use the correct version of the word??
*most of this taken from my recent blog post
absolutely loved this!!!
Wow – this is an amazing echo chamber!
1. Why do you people care so much about this?
2. Wouldn’t your time be better spent building up fellow believers, rather than tearing them down?
3. Not a very well written list.
Sorry, I should have said, “Not a very humorous list.” I suppose it was well written in general. It’s just that all of the guffawing over, at best, mildly humorous material, reinforces the echo chamber feel of this blog. I’m curious why everyone has such a bone to pick?
Because the whole “war on Christmas” thing is so bogus. It’s a huge waste of energy and time (yes, I know I’m taking time and energy writing this!). And it makes Christians look like a bunch of silly whiners who have a hissy fit because some minimum-wage clerk somewhere “offends” them by saying “Happy Holidays.” Is it really better to force people to say “Merry Christmas”?
Well done.
I just did a little blog on this:
http://calebgordon.com/?p=1341
“Should Christians Celebrate Christmas”
I have been asked this question a few times, and thought this was a good answer!
From Johnny Mac
Scripture doesn’t specifically command believers to celebrate Christmas–there are no prescribed “Holy Days” the church must observe. In fact, Christmas was not observed as a holiday until well after the biblical era. It wasn’t until the mid-fifth century that Christmas received any official recognition.
We believe celebrating Christmas is not a question of right or wrong since Romans 14:5-6 provides us with the liberty to decide whether or not to observe special days:
One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks (Rom. 14: 5-6).
According to these verses, a Christian can rightfully set aside any day–including Christmas–as a day for the Lord. We believe Christmas affords believers with a great opportunity to exalt Jesus Christ.
First, the Christmas season reminds us of the great truths of the Incarnation. Remembering important truths about Christ and the gospel is a prevalent New Testament theme (1 Corinthians 11:25; 2 Peter 1:12-15; 2 Thessalonians 2:5). Truth needs repetition because we so easily forget it. So we should celebrate Christmas to remember the birth of Christ and to marvel over the mystery of the Incarnation.
Christmas can also be a time for reverent worship. The shepherds glorified and praised God for the birth of Jesus the Messiah. They rejoiced when the angels proclaimed that in Bethlehem was born a Savior, Christ the Lord (Luke 2:11). The babe laid in the manger that day is our Savior, the “Lord of lords and King of kings” (Matthew 1:21; Revelation 17:14).
Finally, people tend to be more open to the gospel during the Christmas holidays. We should take advantage of that openness to witness to them of the saving grace of God through Jesus Christ. Christmas is chiefly about the promised Messiah who came to save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). The holiday provides us with a wonderful opportunity to share this truth.
Although our society has muddied the message of Christmas through consumerism, myths and empty traditions, we should not let these distract us from appreciating the real meaning of Christmas. Let us take advantage of this opportunity to remember Him, worship Him and faithfully witness of Him.
Caleb Gordon: Thank you for your positive, balanced, and constructive comments. That post was worth more than everything else on this thread combined (including my – admittedly partly critical – post).
Blessings in Christ to all – I pray that we all grow closer to Christ during this season when so many are focused upon his amazing decision to come down to earth, for our sake. Undeserved favor!
My son just pointed out that Xmas on reason #5 would mean to some people “Kiss More.”
Get Merry By X-mas!
Gary
ahh where would the holiday season be without the great Xmas debacle? If only people would read past a family bookstore Christmas card.
word…my mom signs everything this time of year “Merry CHRISTmas.” Makes me think she’s yelling at me.
Love it, Los.
I also enjoy the idea of ‘Jesusmas’. It should definitely be a thing. I don’t think a ‘Jesusmas Day Service’ would attract as many of the one-day-a-year-church-goers though.
I’d suggest that not everyone’s a theologian, so explaining all of the history to support your statement doesn’t go too far. We’re wishing a Merry Christmas to a country who is in debt, only accepts instant gratification, and doesn’t know how to vote for themselves.
I once heard a pastor address your point #4 and have to share
If you think about it, when would Jesus come to earth, when He was born….or was it when He was conceived? Mary would have conceived 9 months prior to the birth of Jesus, which was in September, so conception would have been in December! I think December is a perfect time to celebrate our Lord coming to save us!
Interesting article. It’s just one year Christmas Eve we dedicated our 100 foot tall church cross cell tower. here in Lake Worth, Fl. And with a little PR, earned newspaper and television stories around the world, from the Times of London to the NY Post and even a late night monologue joke. Since then, I’ve heard from churches all over the country, and I would say that’s one big way of saying Merry Christmas!
I think you need a “like” button on your comments! There are some great ones here that had me laughing just as much as your post made me smile. Still, it’s been pressed into my brain that I cannot say Xmas! LOL I can’t help it. I do like your list though!
Just read this on a forum:
“Keep the MASS in ChristMASS. You Protestants bugger off.”
Love it! I am so glad you wrote this so I can share it!
I’m honestly curious – not asking this rhetorically: There seems to be quite a bit of anger (masked by humor) underlying the comments here (or at least irritation, or mild contempt). Why is that? Is there a shared experience in childhood or upbringing.
Maybe I’m off base. I’m just honestly curious about why this upsets most of you so much. It seems visceral.
Yeah, ignorance concerning the origin of our “Christian” holiday has always made me kind of obnoxious. I just see it as a massive consumer-driven waste rather than an actual celebration with meaning. Oh, and Christmas is not holy at all, in fact, we are never told to celebrate the Lord’s birth. In other words, it is completely voluntary and it is so unnecessary to get so bent out of shape about. I liked your list a lot.
Went ahead and got this out there now. Don’t know if it will slow down the raucous, but I hope so!