{"id":22869,"date":"2025-12-07T11:40:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T01:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.suzilove.com\/?p=22869"},"modified":"2025-12-07T11:30:50","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T01:30:50","slug":"christmas-words-we-still-use-today-christmas-holidays-traditions-customs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.suzilove.com\/?p=22869","title":{"rendered":"Christmas: Words We Still Use Today. #Christmas #holidays #Traditions #Customs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-large-font-size\"><strong>Christmas Words We Still Use Today<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">I love finding out the tradition behind some of the things we do and say at Christmas, don&#8217;t you? So I am going to do a series of posts this week covering lots of the historical aspects of our celebrations. Why we say things, why we do things, and why we use things&nbsp;to decorate our houses. Enjoy the festive season with me with more posts to follow.&nbsp;<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>CHRISTMAS<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The word has been around for centuries, with&nbsp;&nbsp;some dictionaries&nbsp;putting it in&nbsp;the late Old English period and&nbsp;others to the 12th century. Old forms include <em>cristes masse<\/em> and <em>christmasse<\/em>, meaning the festival (mass) of Christ. It replaced other pagan midwinter festivals when the church tried to persuade Romans to convert to Christianity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>XMAS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This abbreviation annoys a lot of people&nbsp;but it isn&#8217; t&nbsp;simply modern shorthand.&nbsp; X was used to represent the Greek symbol <em>chi<\/em>, which is also the first letter in Christ. This has been used since Roman times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>DECORATE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The word means <em>to adorn <\/em>and&nbsp;is from the 16th century, but&nbsp;the&nbsp;seasonal meaning of <em>to deck with ornamental accessories<\/em> dates from the 18th century. The word originates from the Latin <em>decoratus<\/em> (beautify).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>TINSEL<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was&nbsp;first seen in the expression <em>tinsell saten <\/em>which&nbsp;means strips of shining metal used for ornament. It&nbsp;also describes things that are showy and worthless. It is believed to have come from the Anglo Norman with ancestors in Old French.<\/p>\n\n\n<span class='bctt-click-to-tweet'><span class='bctt-ctt-text'><a href='https:\/\/x.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.suzilove.com%2F%3Fp%3D22869&#038;text=Christmas%3A%20Words%20We%20Still%20Use%20Today%20%23Christmas%20%23holidays%20%23Traditions%20%23Customs%20%20books2read.com%2FsuziloveHOCP&#038;via=SuziLove&#038;related=SuziLove' target='_blank'rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Christmas: Words We Still Use Today #Christmas #holidays #Traditions #Customs  books2read.com\/suziloveHOCP <\/a><\/span><a href='https:\/\/x.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.suzilove.com%2F%3Fp%3D22869&#038;text=Christmas%3A%20Words%20We%20Still%20Use%20Today%20%23Christmas%20%23holidays%20%23Traditions%20%23Customs%20%20books2read.com%2FsuziloveHOCP&#038;via=SuziLove&#038;related=SuziLove' target='_blank' class='bctt-ctt-btn'rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/books2read.com\/suziloveHOCP\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"571\" src=\"https:\/\/www.suzilove.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/HOCP_D2D_Link-1024x571.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-33062\" style=\"width:385px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.suzilove.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/HOCP_D2D_Link-1024x571.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.suzilove.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/HOCP_D2D_Link-600x335.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.suzilove.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/HOCP_D2D_Link-300x167.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.suzilove.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/HOCP_D2D_Link-768x428.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.suzilove.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/HOCP_D2D_Link-1536x857.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.suzilove.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/HOCP_D2D_Link-640x357.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.suzilove.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/HOCP_D2D_Link.jpg 1836w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Christmas Words We Still Use Today #Christmas #holidays #Traditions #Customs  books2read.com\/suziloveHOCP<\/p>\n <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.suzilove.com\/?p=22869\"><span class=\"more-msg\">Continue reading &rarr;<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[576,616,662,985,659,497,466,494,476,547,495,469,498,488],"tags":[1023,121,742,755,176,430],"class_list":["post-22869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia","category-canada","category-christmas","category-customs","category-edwardian-era","category-england","category-europe","category-georgian-era","category-regency-era","category-romantic-era","category-suzi-love-books","category-suzi-love-images","category-u-s-a","category-victorian-era","tag-australia","tag-british-history","tag-christmas","tag-customs-and-traditions","tag-europe","tag-usa"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Suzi Love","author_link":"https:\/\/www.suzilove.com\/?author=1"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - 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