The workshop's last full session explored the role of Christmas as a culture machine, an idea which emerged from George Mckay's presentation on his research into pop music and especially music festivals. George presented a series of ideas which had emerged from his ongoing study of cultures of resistance, spanning disability and punk music and 'radical gardening'. When talking about Glastonbury as a culture machine, it became clear that this was indeed how we understand Christmas - as much as ordinary people as we do scholars. Christmas is expected to reflect and even concentrate our everyday activities into clearly identifiable practices, decisions and responses. A television scholar might add to this how Christmas serves the same function as a soap opera, offering us heightened awareness of decisions we make every day (perhaps that's why Christmas episodes always have to have a big cliffhanger).

The link to popular music was taken up by Bob Davis (right), who richly told the story of the development of Irving Berlin's 'White Christmas' as a non-Christian response to the success of the carol 'Silent Night'. Tracing the material development of the song (as one that made use of the particular microphones suited to 'crooning'), Bob explored the soundscape created by even the most famous and most-often heard Crosby recording. The paper charted the development of a real break in popular music from the religious in presenting the mood, feeling or experience of Christmas to the public.