Why is xmas short for christmas?
So, from ancient times Christians have used the Greek letter that looks like an X as an abbreviation of ‘Christ’. For the last few centuries, people have used an actual X instead, particularly if they don’t know Greek. So, ‘Christians’ is abbreviated to ‘Xians’, ‘Christ’ is abbreviated to ‘X’ and ‘Christmas’ is abbreviated to ‘Xmas’. This is useful when people want a shorter way of writing something, and is a reminder of Christianity’s roots.
