Pop Culture Based Conversation Starters For The Holidays
The holidays can be difficult. After all, one cannot choose their family, and it takes time before all the complex carbohydrates and copious amounts of egg nog to do their work and put everyone to sleep. What do you talk about in meantime that won’t set off a shouting match? Books, television and movies, of course!
Which character on Game of Thrones are you most thankful has survived so far? Which is the next to go?
Tell a fun story about your experience with the person to your right’s favorite book, movie, or TV show.
Which Poirot mustache is better, David Suchet’s prim wax job, or Kenneth Branagh’s more book-accurate feather-duster?
We all know about Yule Balls, but how else do you think the holiday season celebrated in the Wizarding World?
Ask the longest-married couple at the table to tell the story of their OTP.
How might the Belters in The Expanse tuck into a holiday meal?
What dish does each of the crew members of the USS Discovery bring to the table? Does Saru’s sleestat pie taste as good as it smells?
Given the choice, would you choose a lightsaber or a blaster?
Which Doctor would you want to invite over for dinner (note: this may not necessarily be your favorite Doctor)?
Who cried reading The Fault In Our Stars, and who is a unfeeling robot masquerading as human?
Who at the table has a favorite fanfic?
Ask the parents at the table to describe what media they were most excited to share with their children.
What’s the best surprise ending that you’ve ever read?
I’m really into [new author]. Have you read them before?
What was the most memorable meal in a movie?
What fictional restaurant would you like to go to?
How many plots from old thrillers and mysteries would be utterly ruined if people had cell phones? Which ones would still hold up?
Which Star Trek captain is the best at carving a turkey: Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer, Georgiou or Lorca?
Justice League vs the Avengers: who has a better holiday party?
Jadzia Axelrod
Jadzia Axelrod is an author, an illustrator, and a world changer. Throughout her eventful life she has also been a circus performer, a puppeteer, a graphic designer, a sculptor, a costume designer, a podcaster and quite a few other things that she’s lost track of but will no doubt remember when the situation calls for it.She is the writer and producer of “The Voice Of Free Planet X” podcast, were she interviews stranded time-travelers, low-rent superheroes, unrepentant monsters and other such creature of sci-fi and fantasy, as well as the podcasts “Aliens You Will Meet” and “Fables Of The Flying City.” The story started in “Fables Of The Flying City” is concluded in The Battle Of Blood & Ink, a graphic novel published by Tor.She is not domestic, she is a luxury, and in that sense, necessary.
