The word Christmas comes from Old English Cristes maesse, which means Christ's mass. The word Xmas is sometimes used instead of Christmas. In Greek, X is the first letter of Christ's name. In 1969, the Roman Catholic Church dropped St. Nicholas Feast Day(Santa Claus) from its calendar because his o unreliably documented. The German word Christkindl, which means Christ child entually turned into Kriss Kringle. Santa Claus generally was depicted as an elf until 1931 when Coca-Cola ads portrayed him as human-sized. Rudolph didn't become Santa's ninth eindeer until 1939 when an advertising writer for the department store Montgomery Ward created him