Hypnogoria: THE OLDTIME YULETIDE ADVENT CALENDAR

Welcome dear friends back to the Hypnogoria Old-time Yuletide Advent Calendar! Well we are nearer the end, and it’s time to open Door 23.

So then, I’m sure you are all wondering, what could X possibly stand for? Well, there is a famous, if somewhat controversial Christmas X - X as in Xmas!

Now I know this abbreviation gets up many people’s noses. As a child, we went to a carol concert and I remember an old gentleman there remonstrating with one of the organisers over the choice to use the word “Xmas” instead of “Christmas” in the carol sheet. “X is an unknown quantity!” said the old boy “It’s disrespectful! Use the proper spelling!”

Now then, as it turns out, Xmas is in fact more than just another recent vulgarism like “Crimbo”. And although many folks think it was cooked up by wily shop owners to save lettering space on posters and it conveniently has four letters like their other beloved word “sale”, Xmas has in fact a far older origin.

Xmas is simply an abbreviation for Christmas using the Greek letter chi (pronounced ‘kye’), which looks like an Χ and is the first letter of the Greek word for Christ, Khristos. And in fact it was created by the early church, who used the first two letters of Khristos in the Greek alphabet ‘chi‘ and ‘rho‘ to create a symbol representing the name of Christ, or Jesus, a symbol I am sure you have seen which looks like a letter P overlaid on a X.

However, that said, technically it’s not actually right to say ‘Ex-mas’ – supposedly it still should be pronounced ‘Christmas’. Which, in the spirit of peace and good will to all, strikes me as a decent compromise to end the Xmas wars!

But, while writing this Advent calendar entry, I did start to consider the festive possibilities of X as an unknown quantity. For there is much to discover in the history, legends and lore of Christmas, not to mention many misconceptions that need correcting. A particular bugbear of mine is the completely inaccurate factoid that does the rounds every year that states Coca Cola invented Santa. They most certainly did not, and while we are at it, neither were they responsible for his red and white garb!

However, back on point, as I was saying, there are many mysteries surrounding Christmas. Some I hope this Advent calendar has illuminated, but there are still some unanswered questions, such as who really started kissing under the mistletoe, the origins of the British Old Father Christmas, or even where the name Boxing Day comes from - questions that are are still perplexing Christmasologists to this very day.

For my own part, a good few years ago, I made it a little tradition to try and learn something new about the history and lore of Christmas every year. And that has been a gift that has kept on giving year after year. Our knowledge and understanding of the festive season is growing and expanding all the time, and it seems there's no danger of ever knowing it all. But more importantly, the more I delve into the mysteries of Christmas, the more I appreciate it, and the more magical it becomes. X does indeed mark the spot and there is festive treasure buried there.