How did the words "Crimbo" and "Xmas" come about from Christmas?

Question

i was jut wandering because:

a) how was "Christ" replaced with "X"

b) "Crimbo", wheres the origin of that?

thank you..

Answer 1

Its somewhat like how ped-xing actually means pedestrian crossing. The X is used as kind of a nick name or like dude says its probably related latin, short little representation of the real thing. Cross-mas sounds kinda like Christmas. I am guessing since the cross is an accepted univeral christian symbol of christ then saying cross-mas/X-mas is an acceptable way to shorten the spelling of Christmas. I guess it comes down to how you look at it.

Crimbo is a slang term that started in the innercity New York and Chicago in around 1930's, its a variant of the word Crimble whis is a nick name also given to the holiday time because of Chris Cringle aka Santa Claus. Some modern music uses Crimbo sometimes in the lyrics when singing about the Holiday season as well.

Christmas in itself is an abreviation of the origional Crīstesmæsse!

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

Never heard of Crimbo.

Xmas started as the "politically correct" abbreviation for Christmas. For some reasons that I don't comprehend some people seem to be offended by all things Christian. These people seem to believe that if they replace the word "Christ" with the letter "X" it will be less offensive to the Christian haters out there.

Bottom line: Although Christmas has much symbology hailing from pagan festivals and is celebrated in late December because Emperor Constantine found it easier to hijack the Yule festival that everyone was already celebrating rather than picking a totally arbitrary date, Christmas is about the celebration of the birth of Jesus. This makes it a Christian holiday and Christians should be quite insulted by those who try to call it anything else.

Answer 3

I don't completely buy the "originated in New York" thing for Crimbo (Chrimbo?). I've only ever heard British people use this slang term. Have a hard time believing it originated in America, since most Americans here in this thread never heard of it before.

Answer 4

Crimbo

Answer 5

credo quia est absurdum & JJ are right about why Xmas is a thing. It comes from the Greek alphabet which was a contemporary language of the time. The Crimbo thing, Andy is on the right track. I came here looking for the answer of how it became British slang...

Answer 6

X is the Greek letter "chi" and, as such, is the first letter in words such as Christ, Christian, Christmas when written in Greek. English writers adopted it as a very quick abbreviation for use in the above words, as well as many others written or sounding the same. As with many other Americans, crimbo is new to me.

Answer 7

I have heard differing opinions about "Xmas," but the writer at wikipedia thinks the X represents Christ's cross.

"Crimbo" is a new one for me. Sorry, I have no idea!

Answer 8

X is the Greek representation of the letter CHI, which is the first part of the name 'Christos', thus 'X'-mas is an abbreviation for Christ's Mass.

Crimbo is a slang term for Christmas, originating in urban slang before becoming more widely used

Answer 9

I never heard of "crimbo" but I know that the X has been used for-ever...Christ was crucified on a cross and that's the "X" is what we were told in grade school.

I've heard the word "Crimmas" (that's how it sounds) but not "crimbo".

Answer 10

I dunno about Crimbo, but I've heard that some people have tried to take Christ out of Christmas, which you hear about in the news and I am totally against it.