x marks the holiday

I've been reading up on people complaining about the removal of Jesus Christ from Christmas and calling the holiday Xmas instead. One woman at the Farm Town market was even huffing and puffing about it and was calling expletives at other players who disagree with her.

Oh that's my world now, in the interactive scenes of an online game.

But back to that letter of the alphabet. The family has a friend named Christopher, and his nickname is actually X. I originally thought this was hip and catchy, since yes, Christmas at times is Xmas to some.

With this divide on the shortening of the Christmas word these days, especially to accommodate cellular phone messages and cool holiday cards, About.com has this to say:

Question: Why Is There an X in Xmas? Some Christians complain that the abbreviation Xmas for Christmas is part of a move to secularize the holiday, to take the Christ out of Christmas, but this isn't really justified.

Answer: It is said that when the Emperor Constantine had his great vision that caused him to convert to Christianity, he saw the Greek letters Chi and Rho intertwined. Chi is written as an 'X' and Rho is written as a 'P', but they are the first two letters of the Greek word Christ 'savior'. 'XP' is sometimes used to stand for Christ. Sometimes X is used alone. This is the case in the Chi (X) abbreviation for Christ in Xmas. Thus, Xmas is not directly a way of secularizing the holiday, but since 'X' is not Chi in English, we read the word as X-mas and see no connection with Christ.

Now that is a relief to know.

Why is there an X in Xmas?