Keep the X in Xmas

I once gave a Christmas sermon: "Keep the X in Xmas!" I thought then and still do now that my line of argument was clever.

I meant X as a symbol of the unknown--the mystery always beyond the progressing edge of knowledge. Mystery invokes wonder and joy, without which Christmas for us postmoderns is an empty commercial shell. My most popular Christmas meditation softly recommends: "If only for the season, the brief season of light and life and love, let us be a little foolish about candlelight and children and matters of the heart, if only for the season!"

To be a little foolish is to keep the mystery, the X factor in Xmas.