Community Corner
Merry Xmas from All of Us at Patch: Christmas Trivia
As a holiday treat, here are a few facts you might not know about the history of Christmas.
1. The term "Xmas" is not is not a secularized version of the word Christmas.
People might assume that taking the "Christ" out of the word "Christmas" was done in an attempt to make a religiously neutral term that companies could splatter across holiday swag so as not to alienate potential customers. But that is not the case.
According to some sources, the term "Xmas" is actually nearly as old as Christianity. The term comes from word "Χριστός", the Greek word for Christ. The word's first letter is the Greek letter "Chi", denoted an "X" in the Latin alphabet (also known as the Roman alphabet), and that is how you end up with "Xmas".
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2. Rudolph, Reginald or Rollo the Red Nosed Reindeer?
For many, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is nearly as much a part of Christmas as Santa. But where did the character come from? Actually, Rudoloph comes from Chicago. Well, sort of.
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The story comes from Robert L. May, an in-house copywriter for Chicago-based retailer Montgomery Ward, who created the story in 1939. In previous years, the company had handed out coloring books to children as a Christmas gift, but in 1939, executives wanted to save some money by creating the coloring book in-house, and so May was asked to create a Christmas story for children that had an animal for a main character. The result? Rudolp h was born. But May had also considered the names Reginald and Rollo for the sleigh leader.
A decade later, May's brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, decided to adapt the story into the popular holiday song known today.
3. The Bones of Old Saint Nicholas
In the 1950s, the Italian basilica that supposedly held the bones of the real Saint Nicholas was renovated, and at that time, several scientists examined the remains. While it cannot be known for certain whether the tomb was actually that of St. Nick’s, the scientist determined that the entombed man had been only slightly over five feet in height, had a broken nose at the time of death and may have lived into his 70s, significantly above life expectancy in the 4th Century. Historically, at least one descriptor in “jolly old Saint Nicholas” is accurate.
