Whichmas? Thatmas!

“‘Let me see ’em’, said his father. ”
Source: St. Nicholas 5, no. 2 (1877)

Bill O’Reilly is off on his annual “Why does KMart hate Christmas” rant. I think he’s right, of course. It is offensive to have your holiday bundled up with a bunch of pseudo-holidays into a generic “Season’s Greetings”. But why only Christmas?

See “Why does Lou Dobbs hate Christmas?” for a note on last year’s go-round.

A mention by Pharyngula of “Cephalopodmas” (22 Dec) got me pondering -masses. The -mas in ‘Christmas’ is a reduced form of ‘mass’, used in the names of certain feast days (Michaelmas, 29 Sep, the Feast of Michael and All Angels; Candlemas, 2 Feb, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin). In current English it is a mildly productive suffix.

So happy X-mas!

Animalmas

• Catmas and Catsmas (12,400 and 134 Google hits respectively)
  “Is it Catsmas?”
• Fishmas (about 3,000)
  The Grinch Who Stole Fishmas
• Moosemas (400 or so)
  Merry Moosemas Moose, also here
• Mousemas (191 total, but only half or fewer are genuine)
  Methuselah Mousemas, Mickey Mousemas
• Squidmas (84, almost all genuine)
  Squidmas music
• Pigmas (about 50)
  Merry Pigmas, Fröhliche Schweinachten
• Dogmas (a few dozen; ‘dogsmas’ occurs once in a deleted Livejournal blog)
  The Night before Dogmas
• Birdmas (9)
  Merry Birdmas

Othermas

• Kissmas (over 200,000)
  Merry Kissmas with Lois & Clark
• Giftmas (17,000)
  Merry Giftmas
• Crispmas (1300)
  Merry Crispmas (“The year in chips”)
• Blissmas (over 600)
  on Christmas Blissmas night so long ago
• Boxmas (less than 200)
  Merry x-Boxmas: “Jesus has another list”
• Kitsmas (6)
  Melly Kitsmas (from St. Nicholas 5 (Dec 1877), no. 2; another version here)

Added: A faithful reader has pointed out that I omitted the obvious

• Moneymas (49)
  Changing "Merry Christmas" to "Merry Moneymas"

Added: Another late arrival, or perhaps two. Nixmas1 seems to be from nix ‘no’, and Nixmas2 from *nix, by aphaeresis from ‘Unix’.

• Nixmas (200?)
  I believe I might have created a new holiday: Nixmas

Crooks & Liars notes that a majority of those polled by Fox remain unpersuaded that there is a “war on Christmas”. Perhaps they’re distracted by that other war.