Some people get awfully sniffy about Xmas as shorthand for Christmas. Wretched modern world, proto-textspeak, irreligious, ahistorical, next they’ll be calling it Pepsi-day.
As it happens, Xmas has been in use in English for centuries, and is recorded in a letter by the poet and polymath Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The ‘X’ stands for the Greek letter chi; in (ancient) Greek Christ is ‘Χριστός’. This abbreviation for Christ (often using the first two letters, chi and rho, Xρ) was common in ancient Christian artwork; it has an exceptionally long pedigree.
It may not be recommended for use in formal writing, and most publishers’ style guides are agin it, but it isn’t illiterate or crudely secular, a symptom of the commercialisation of Christmas.
Merry Χριστόςmas, everyone.
Paul Fishman (Bristol, December 2014)
(For more on the coin and Christogram see here.)
Paul Fishman 
Paul,
I am as guilty as anyone in my distaste for the abbreviation. I cannot even bring myself to type it. A few friends know to use it to wind me up too!
Not anymore. I consider myself educ8ed 🙂
“Froehliche Weihnachten und ein glueckliches Neues Jahr!”
Mike
Michael,
I think it’s a wee bit ugly, but there you go. Next time you see it, just nod knowingly and murmur ‘Ah, chi … rho’.
Enjoy the holidays, may your plate and glass never be empty.
P.