Xmas and Christmas

In a week when Rage Against the Machine have stopped X factor winner Joe McElderry from gaining the Christmas no. 1 spot and Times cartoonist, Peter Brookes produced this masterpiece, I've been speaking in local schools about the X factor in Xmas. There are many reasons we should be happy to see Xmas used as well as Christmas. Contrary to the way my church friends reacted when I was younger, X, the first letter of Christ's name in Greek and a symbol, for many, of love, actually reinforces the place of Christ in this festival and serves to remind us of the love God demonstrated sending Jesus into the darkness of the world. Unlike Tony Blair, that X becomes for us not a cross we have to carry but a love we celebrate.