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Jinkx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme Bring Holiday Cheer with Annual Show

The show emphasizes community, togetherness, and chosen family.

Holiday Drag Extravaganza Jinkx Monsoon(l) and BenDeLaCreme light up Houston (Photo by Jacob Ritts)

Beloved drag queens Jinkx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme are taking their iconic holiday confection, The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show, on the road for the seventh consecutive year. Of course, one could be a Scrooge and stay home to (re)watch their show from 2020, but that would deprive you of all the new material this duo has created. So come all ye faithful and rejoice because this year’s tour includes, for the first time, stops across the American South and multiple cities in Texas.

Jinkx and DeLa conceive of and write their holiday show each year, and then DeLa directs and produces the extravaganza with producers Kevin Heard, Gus Lanza, and associate producer Jin Moon of BenDeLaCreme Presents. “Because I’m a Virgo and DeLa’s a Virgo-Libra cusp, that’s how we pull it off,” Jinkx says with a grin and a wink. “From the beginning, we always deeply cared about putting on the best possible show for our audience.”

With the platform that Ru Paul’s Drag Race gifted the pair, they always knew they could easily slap a few numbers and witty banter together, rehearse, and keep their fans fully entertained. “But we chose, seven years ago, to build a show that is as inspired as it is entertaining,” adds Jinkx. “It is entertainment with a message and with heart in it. It’s an entertaining show that houses our core beliefs of community, togetherness, and protecting each other when we face adversity.”

“We love our jobs as comedy writers, and we actually spend as much time developing this work as we do touring it,” explains DeLa. Both of these talented queens set aside two months to write, develop, and rehearse a gut-busting comedy show that gets a limited two-month tour.

“That really comes from a place of passion, and I think it’s really reflected in the work,” states DeLa. “Comedy is the tool that we both have identified we have to bring joy and make a difference. It’s at a time where we’re all looking for what we can do to make the world better, even if it just feels like it’s just making some people laugh.”

The holidays can be especially hard for members of our community, which is another reason Jinkx and DeLa are committed to keeping this tradition of merriment alive. “When I reached double digits and adolescence, I started to really see the cracks in my family unit and the way that people were coming together and performing togetherness,” DeLa recalls. “So I really grew up hating Christmas, and I started making holiday shows in 2007 because I wanted an excuse to not go home for Christmas. Saying ‘I have to work on Christmas Eve’ was a really great way to do that.”

“I didn’t really realize that my grandma was already practicing ‘chosen family’ with her Christmas Eve party. That was when all of our misfit friends and all of our friends who didn’t have other family at that time of year, for whatever reason, would gather together.” It’s that spirit of celebrating chosen family that makes this holiday tradition a must-see experience. “This show allows me to take those feelings that I had as a kid, and not only remember the really bright spots of my childhood, but share that feeling with our audiences,” adds Jinkx.

“​​We get to reclaim homecoming, however that is. And what we strive to do is make that home space for people, even if our show doesn’t fall on the actual holiday,” DeLa adds. “That message from these shows has always been just as much for me as it is for the audience. We get to build our own family at a time of year when we’re inundated with images and words about homecoming, family togetherness, and tradition.”

Bringing the show to Texas, and especially Houston, is no happy accident. “DeLa and the production team put an emphasis on making sure we make it to the South and Texas because those are the areas that are being affected the most by this wave of political BS we’ve experienced,” says Jinkx. “Those are the people that need this show the most, and we need to see them and be there with them.”

“We want to go where this energy is the most needed, and where we can provide the most solidarity, comfort, and joyous distraction,” DeLa notes.

(Photo by Santiago Felipe)

Performing in large venues across the nation allows the queens to pack their annual holiday tour with high production values. “We have an incredible crew of dancers. We have fabulously designed costumes. It’s all the fun visuals you want,” DeLa says. “We do original music. We do song parodies. And we’re real storytellers. So it’s all of the aspects of really fun, camp drag, and it’s wall-to-wall comedy.”

“We’ve been vetted. We’ve been tested,” Jinkx adds. “DeLa is an acclaimed television writer. She’s directed, co-written, and helped work on many live performances that you probably don’t even know about yet. Then I’ve been working on Broadway and Off Broadway. We’re not just a couple of nobodies off the street putting on a holiday show.”

As co-founding members of Drag PAC, Jinkx and DeLa would like to remind everyone to get involved in the 2024 election before attending their November 18 show. “We have to really, really band together. It is so easy to feel like this system isn’t representing you, it won’t work in your favor, and your voice doesn’t matter. That has been true,” DeLa emphasizes. “We owe it to the generations to come and the generations who did the work for us to carry on. So even if you don’t feel like you need to do it for yourself, do it for the community. Do it for the vulnerable people you care about.”

“We’re both old enough to remember the times before marriage equality, and the times before zero tolerance for homophobia and transphobia in some schools,” states Jinkx. “That happens because of unified efforts. So it feels like it’s a small thing, but together we make huge changes, and we cannot go backwards.”

“If people feel like they resonate with that, but voting specifically doesn’t feel like the way to do that, we can come at this from all angles,” DeLa adds. “You don’t have to choose. You can be in the streets, you can be speaking up in all the ways you want to, and you can vote. It is important that queers are everywhere. We don’t just have to be in one place raising our voices. So don’t let it deter you. Let’s try everything.”

WHAT: The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show
WHEN: November 18
WHERE: Bayou Music Center
INFO: jinkxanddela.com

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David Clarke

David Clarke is a freelance writer contributing arts, entertainment, and culture stories to OutSmart.
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