Mary gives us a new verb for Christmas(ing)

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Tlus pus msaika yutl tomtom! (Rejoice!)

Chi tanas wawa chako kopa nsaika! (A new word has come to us!)

I love this fact: ‘Christmas’ is a verb in Kamloops-area Chinuk Wawa!

Appropriately, we first learn this from a Mary, who gives us Noil, from French noël, in an unpublished letter she wrote:

iawa iaka noil
there 3 to.spend.Christmas
‘There he spent Christmas.’
— Mary Pete, Deep Creek, BC, (21 January 1899):

Ten years later, an informal letter from a priest confirms the concept and gives us a synonym Krismash:

…naika mamuk tiligram kopa Soda Krik tilikom pus wawa pus naika Krismash 
… I make telegram to Soda Creek (Native.)people to say would I spend.Christmas
‘…I telegraphed to the Soda Creek Indians to say I would spend Christmas‘

kopa klaska ilihi x Knim Lik tilikom … klaska tu lit … pi kakwa naika ilo 
at their village. Canim Lake people … they too late … and so I not
‘at their village. The Canim Lake Indians … were too late … and so I didn’t’

Krismash kopa klaska ilihi x 
spend.Christmas at their village.
‘spend Christmas at their village.’

— Father François-Marie Thomas OMI, 150 Mile House, BC, 9 February 1909

Kata maika noil ukuk kol ilihi?