It really depends on the relative. I love talking politics with my brother, and with my fiance's immediate family, but there are some others with whom the subject is really best avoided unless I want to spend the holiday nursing a giant headache.

I'm just too passionate about political issues to stay quiet. I also really want to try to understand my mother's political positions...and how can I do so without discussing it? She disagrees however, and seems to just like to make quick digs at my beliefs. With my father, however, I can have a spirited discussion, since he is a moderate who is able to argue any side of an issue whether or not he agrees with it.

Last Christmas, my entire family stayed in a beach house together for a few days, and a perfectly innocent game of Cranium turned into a drunken argument over health care. Then my aunt and mom started crying about how much they love each other and how great it is to all get together for the holidays.
Yes, we talk politics.

No not really I've been taking a break from politics since the election because that was all I could talk about for months!

We've made agreements in the past to try and avoid politics, but they've always broken down - sometimes innocently, other times because someone had an itch they wanted to scratch loud. Arguments don't always break down by party lines though - sometimes its the cops and soldiers in the family, conservative and liberal, versus family members in the media.

I do but there's a lot of if and and buts involved. I enjoy talking politics to anyone (person to person) however if they start regurgitating nothing but sound bites from the news, false facts or unreasonable bias I leave it alone and I'd rather surrender and cut it than have to endure. Another thing that will cut it short for me is closed mindedness (narrow minded is o.k.) but close minded means that you have your psychological sentinels at red alert and you're not going to let anything in no matter how much sense it makes. I have had people in the face of pure undisputed logic refuse to submit to it. They will sit there and just say (I don't care) rather than submit to fact and logic. That's crazy.

I would have loved to see a debate between my cousin and my mom about Prop. 8, and we could have had another family member be the moderator, that would have been fun. But alas, my mom is not open to debate about Prop. 8!

I try to avoid these arguments because we have had some big trouble in the past. But sometimes people bring up things...and then it gets everyone going. Result: hurt feelings and resentment. Even those in the same political party have a wide range of beliefs. All my family members are very knowledgeable, and very political, so the debates are strong.

My family talks politics a little. It doesn't come up much because we all agree with each other's stances, for the most part, and have more serious things to discuss. Things like who's going to get the last piece of fudge, or who's going to play cards with whom, or who gets to watch all 8 of the "next generation" while the adults go on a Steak and Shake run...

In my family everyone has agreed to disagree when it comes to discussing politcs and it's been working out great so far.We all want to enjoy the holidays without it turning into a pissing match so we give it our best effort to try and avoid that subject like the plague...

I feel like talking politics with my family would be asking for it. So no.

My dad and I always talk politics - the world doesn't stop for the Christmas holidays, so why block everything out?

You know what's funny though is when my Evangelical Christian family starts talking about sex. They trip me out so much I just don't go there sometimes.

Hypno, why do Evangels want to talk about sex? How does it even come up? (Just curious)

I would love to talk politics with my family members who are republican but they don't like to so I just drink and talk about reandom crap.

What is random? The weather? TV? Cousin Marie?
What do you drink? Irish whiskey? Chardonnay?

Random can be dangerous - to avoid politics with my dad, I brought up the Yankees - and set him off on a tangent about spoiled athletes that cleared the table!

Random can be dangerous - to avoid politics with my dad, I brought up the Yankees - and set him off on a tangent about spoiled athletes that cleared the table!

It got a little heated during one of our dinners...I told my grandfather and father to move on to a different topic. They realized that it was going nowhere and began talking about the creme brule. They both agreed, mom makes an excellent creme brule.

I think we all said yay Obama and moved on to gossip.

Not really, there are only two democrats in my family ,my sister and her husband, and we dont talk politics we only joke about it. Like on thursday my bro in law said something about "the savior being born" and i said "yes, how long ago was Obama birthed into our mortal world" or something like that and we both laughed.

My wife and I voted for the same presidential candidate for the first time in over 40 years, four years ago. We rarely talk politics as such. We do discuss issues if they are topical. I enjoy discussing politics socially as long as it is in the arena of light and not heat. ad homonym attacks, drive me up the wall. There is a Chinese proverb "He who strikes the first blow admits he's lost the argument."