Factoid

Today I decided to learn a little more about the word Christmas and thought I'd share a bit of information that I thought was interesting:

The word Christmas originated as a compound meaning "Christ's Mass". In Greek, the letter X (chi), is the first letter of Christ, and it, or the smililar Roman letter X, has been used as an abbreviation for Christ since the mid-16th century, Hence, Xmas is sometimes used as an abbreviation for Christmas. (source)

I always thought the word Xmas took the Christ out of Christmas - apparently I was wrong, though I still prefer to say Christmas. :)

Today I am grateful for the internet and what a wonderful tool it is. I'm especially grateful for dictionary.com right now as it is helping me study for the GRE and learn new words like stygian, veneration, and inveterate.

It's a short one for today!

Love and hugs. :)