10 more sleeps til Christmas

Posted by Brian from Shawnee on February 28, 2006

In Reply to: 10 more sleeps til Christmas posted by Angela on February 27, 2006

: When and why did we start telling our kids "10 more sleeps til Christmas" ?
: I've found this a hard phrase to try and look up, because the number of sleeps always varies. Was is just coined to help kids understand the concept of time? Why do we say sleeps instead of days, nights or dinners?

In the U.S. we've always said "x days til Christmas". The idea of counting down the days until Christmas was started by H. Gordon Selfridge while he was working for Marshall Field's in Chicago. He later went on to found Selfridge's in London where he coined the phrase "the customer is always right".

For a discussion about "shopping days until Christmas", goto www.phrases.org.uk bulletin_board 17 messages 428.html