One truly interesting thing about language is how much it evolves over time. We're all about shortening words these days, either for the sake of brevity or just so you'll seem cool to your friends. As I record this, there are only 9 days left until Christmas Day, and some people consider it disrespectful when you truncate the word "Christmas" to "Xmas." They say it takes the "Christ" out of "Christmas," and in a literal sense, I guess theyr'e right... but here's the thing. The use of "Xmas" dates back to the 16th century, back when, I think it's safe to say, Christianity was a pretty massive force in the world. You have to imagine that if saying "Xmas" were really such a problem, it would've been stamped out before the 17th century rolled around. Anyway, our puzzle today revolves around that much-maligned letter, perhaps the trickiest of all English letters. It's time to celebrate our friend the X with a round of "First Things First." (With music by Landon Beall, Broke for Free, Nheap, and Mark Sparling [”Day 2″ and “Day 8″].)