that Jamestown in Virginia was founded over a decade earlier, 1607 as against 1620. Jamestown was a secular establishment, intended to bring wealth to its leaders and strategic advantages for England's struggle against Spain in the New World.
In spite of Jamestown, however, it is the Puritan settlement in Massachusetts that left the deepest impact on Americans themselves, as well as on the rest of the world in its image of America. The Puritans, as every American schoolchild is taught, and everyone interested in American history learns, came to America not for wealth or political objectives, but to worship according to their own beliefs, free of persecution.
Thanksgiving, as one of the most important American holidays, is a yearly reminder of the Pilgrims and their quest. Thanksgiving is also, perhaps, notable and distinctly American in being a holiday that is religious in its connotations without being linked to an one single interpretation of faith.
In contrast, Christmas is not only specifically Christian, but tied to particular beliefs not shared by all Christians. The Muslim, Jewish, or Buddhist American may welcome time off from work or school, but can have no part in the holiday itself. Nor can the Christian who does not believe that the birthday of Jesus is an important occasion of faith, nor those Christians members of the Eastern Orthodox churches who celebrate it on a different day. In any case, Christmas in the modern US has become a largely secular holiday, associated more with shopping than contemplation.
Thanksgiving, though linked to the image of the Protestant Christian Puritans, is not a Protestant holiday or even a Christian one. It welcomes all, without imposing or even suggesting a particular belief. Yet its very name conveys a tone of faith, of giving thanks not for wrapped presents but for greater gifts. Notably, the day before Thanksgiving is the heaviest travel day i...