Mother Christmas

plural Mother Christmases · plural Mother Christmasses · alternative abbreviation informal Mother Xmas

1. The wife of Father Christmas; Mrs. Claus.

   At Cape Town City Libraries the little children thought it was Christmas and the staff felt like Mother Christmasses handing out gifts all week.

   1995, The Cape Librarian, volume 39, Cape Town, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 9, columns 1–2

   4 more examples

   One ball is very much like another, just as one Academy is very much like another, Father Christmassses, Mother Christmasses, Red Riding Hoods, Flowers, Chinamen, Seasons, Brides, Bridesmaids, Carmens, Crusoes, and Costers, all were there, jostling one another as they have jostled one another a thousand times before.

   1898 December 19, “Covent Garden Fancy Dress Ball”, in The Morning Post, number 39,481, London, →OCLC, page 6, column 4

   A mild uproar at the other end of the bar told me without looking that Bunny, the Mother Christmasses and the rest of the band had arrived and had walked into the middle of the darts match.

   1989, Mike Ripley, chapter 6, in Angel Hunt (Fitzroy Maclean Angel; 3), Long Preston, North Yorkshire: Magna Large Print Books, published 2007, →ISBN, page 134

   It's official: Santa is from Greenland, according to an edict from the world's top Father Christmases at their annual summit in Denmark. Sweating it out in the summer heat in white beards and red hats and robes, 130 Father and Mother Christmases and Santa's helpers from 12 countries put an end to debate about which nation is their real home.

   2002 July 23, Reuters, Copenhagen, “I come from Greenland, says Santa”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 27 Aug 2013

   The previously submitted 67 images — which include a Mother Christmas figure as a counterpart to Santa Claus — were scheduled to be voted on this month.

   2016 May 13, Karen Workman, “Emojis Would Show Women Doing More Than Painting Their Nails”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 12 May 2016