Ok, I haven’t done much here lately so I’ll make up for it by writing a small book in defense of John’s message..
See sources (amongst many) such as
Xmas Abbreviation - The abbreviation of ‘Xmas’ for ‘Christmas’ is neither modern nor disrespectful. The notion that it is a new and vulgar representation of the word ‘Christmas’ seems to stem from the erroneous belief that the letter ‘X’ is used to stand for the word ‘Christ’ because of its resemblance to a cross, or that the abbreviation was deliberately concocted “to take the ‘Christ’ out of Christmas.”
Actually, this usage is nearly as old as Christianity itself, and its origins lie in the fact that the first letter in the Greek word for ‘Christ’ is ‘chi,’ and the Greek letter ‘chi’ is represented by a symbol similar to the letter ‘X’ in the modern Roman alphabet. Hence ‘Xmas’ is indeed perfectly legitimate abbreviation for the word ‘Christmas’ (just as ‘Xian’ is also sometimes used as an abbreviation of the word ‘Christian’).
None of this means that Christians (and others) aren’t perhaps justified in feeling a little miffed when people take the shortcut of writing ‘Xmas’ rather than ‘Christmas,’ but the point is that the abbreviation was not created specifically for the purpose of demeaning Christ, Christians, Christianity, or Christmas: it’s a very old artifact of a very different language.
Snopes was just the first reference I found but I saw references to this decades ago in religious groups when I cared about such things.
BTW - if I remember correctly, Christ isn’t a name, it means anointed.
Once again I wish you all a Merry Christmas/Xmas/holidays or whatever it is you do at this time.
Especially to the unhappy and unhealthy.
Tim.
(I am no longer religious, but lost soul that I am, I keep getting invited to join in Christmas celebrations by people that are - they remind me of an inclusive someone I learned about as a kid, he said things about the dangers of judging others and some stuff about specks and planks in eyes...
Attacking a message that is simply wishing people joy, happiness, merriment etc speaks volumes about the attacker.
Patent US20120313060 - Decking and plank removal tool - Google Patents