No, really, what IS Christmas? I used to think Christmas means Christ más, which loosely translates to plus Christ in Spanish. I know, it’s absurd, but it made just enough “sense” that I didn’t bother asking, until now.
It turns out, the mas in Christmas is short for mass, another name for worship service in Catholicism. So Christmas originally meant the special worship service in celebration of Christ’s birth. Everything else (gifts, eggnog, trees) may as well be just icing on the Christmas cake.
Now, that begs another question… What does Christ mean? No, Christ is not Jesus’ last name. The Greek text of Christ, Χριστός (Christos), means “Anointed One“. (I hope you already know the initial Greek letter Χ {chi} is the reason we have the shorthand Xmas. Also, the first two letters Χρ {chi-rho}, are combined to form the ☧ symbol commonly found in Catholicism, as well as some wine bottles, specifically from the delicious region of Châteauneuf du Pape, which translates to “Pope’s New Castle”. Okay, I’ll stop.)
It’s also worth noting that Christ and Χριστός are equivalent to the Hebrew word מָשִׁיחַ (Messiah), which means, you guessed it, “Anointed One”. Now everything ties together neatly. Isn’t that nice?