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The English word Christmas is a shortened form of 'Christ's Mass'. [3] The word is recorded as Crīstesmæsse in 1038 and Cristes-messe in 1131. [4] Crīst (genitive Crīstes) is from the Greek Χριστός (Khrīstos, 'Christ'), a translation of the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ (Māšîaḥ, 'Messiah'), meaning 'anointed'; [5] [6] and mæsse is from the Latin missa, the celebration of the ...
A 1922 advertisement in Ladies' Home Journal: "Give her a L'Aiglon for Xmas". Xmas (also X-mas) is a common abbreviation of the word Christmas.It is sometimes pronounced / ˈ ɛ k s m ə s /, but Xmas, and variants such as Xtemass, originated as handwriting abbreviations for the typical pronunciation / ˈ k r ɪ s m ə s /.
Merry Christmas and a happy new year" (thus incorporating two greetings) was in an informal letter written by an English admiral in 1699. The same phrase is contained in the title of the English carol "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," and also appears in the first commercial Christmas card, produced by Henry Cole in England in 1843. [71]
The 1822 poem "An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas," commonly called "'Twas The Night Before Christmas," furthered the narrative that Santa was a "right jolly old elf" who rode a sleigh to ...
“The Night Before Christmas” originally identified eight reindeer that lead Santa Claus’ sleigh every holiday. And while the poem gendered the reindeer as males, biology tells us that couldn ...
'Twas the Night Before Christmas History. The poem, originally titled A Visit or A Visit From St. Nicholas, was first published anonymously on Dec. 23, 1823, in a Troy, New York newspaper called ...
Neapolitan presepio at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. The practice of putting up special decorations at Christmas has a long history. In the 15th century, it was recorded that in London, it was the custom at Christmas for every house and all the parish churches to be "decked with holm, ivy, bays, and whatsoever the season of the year afforded to be green". [4]
Their popularity grew in the 19th century and spread throughout Europe, prompting Prussian author E. T. A. Hoffmann to pen a children's short story in 1816 called The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.