Not your drag mother’s Christmas special
Planning The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show is no small feat. The Post-it notes on BenDeLaCreme’s wall, according to her, look like “a CSI kind of, like, crime-solving thing.” And if you’re looking for just a traditional Christmas tale, with flying reindeer saving the day, elves who’d rather be cleaning teeth, or a green criminal who seems averse to wearing pants and tries to ruin everyone’s good time, I’d look elsewhere. But if you want a fun night out, a good laugh and wacky storylines, this is the show to hit this holiday season.
Now, when I say “wacky storylines,” I’m talking about horror and sci-fi elements that you wouldn’t normally think of in a Christmas story. “We have compiled many, many ideas that have either been cut from previous shows or never made it into a previous show in the first place,” Jinkx Monsoon explained. “We like to put ourselves as the characters in very crazy situations, and then try to still deliver a bona fide holiday show to rival The Nutcracker or Mariah Carey on her best day.”
DeLa is the head writer of the show, which will be an anthology, comprised of four different plotlines. “There’s core things you can rely on from Jinkx and DeLa,” DeLa said. “One of the things that I love about what we do is that it’s always kind of this uphill battle of Jinkx and DeLa trying to just put on a regular old drag variety show, and something totally surreal and out of their control happening to them.… We get weird.”
“Weird” is a good word for this show, historically speaking. But don’t get me wrong, there’s no negative undertone here. DeLa recalls one year where the show involved Christmas Carol-esque ghosts and time travel. There was also a show where Jinkx and DeLa were trapped in their own holiday show.
“But don’t blame us for spooky Christmas,” Monsoon added. “That started with Dickens. Christmas only in contemporary terms has had such light, fluffy, heartwarming connotations. Christmas traditions have just as many dark characters. So, if anything, we’re just very dramaturgically correct,” she told me with a laugh.
This year’s show in Philadelphia and elsewhere as it tours will grant a wish Monsoon has had for years: a body-swap storyline. “We’re both famed character illusionists, we’ve both won Snatch Game twice,” Monsoon recalled with a proud smile.
“I’m sure it’ll be just like the actual Freaky Friday where we’ll actually learn a lot from walking in each other’s shoes,” DeLa explained.
“And guess who’s the Lohan?” Monsoon said with a laugh. Of course, it’s the redhead. “And DeLa eats so much yogurt,” she told me, giggling and making a reference to Lindsay Lohan’s co-star, Jamie Lee Curtis, and her appearances in Activia commercials.
At this point in the interview, my professional journalist facade cracked, and I quipped, “You must be very regular.”
DeLa didn’t miss a beat. “I kinda am,” she replied with a nod. “Listen, when you’re living on a tour bus, you gotta have a rhythm. It’s important.”
Jokes aside, there’s a reason behind the decision to incorporate horror elements into a campy comedy holiday show. DeLa cites Pee Wee’s Playhouse and Elvira as inspirations, some of her favorite things growing up. “There is something about the way that camp takes the real world as we see it and turns it on its head, and blows it up into something that is really pointing out the ridiculousness of what we all encounter day to day, that I just think is really powerful,” she explained. “And it’s a way to process stuff in a way that’s really fun and funny.”
But there’s also a more serious explanation for these choices. So many horror films over the years have been made as allegories for a social or political issue. And in a year where we’ve seen so much change, so much fear and so much upheaval, The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show is a safe haven.
“We are all enduring multiple horrors right now,” DeLa continued. “And we never know what’s coming next. It does feel like thing after thing after thing that we have to deal with as a community and as a culture. And it’s hard to know how to get through it. But I think one of the ways we get through it is singing, dancing, loving on each other, making each other laugh. And if that resonates and that’s what people want to take away from it, that’s beautiful. If they just want two hours of escapism, they have that option, too.”
When we talked, the two stars were getting ready for rehearsals. Monsoon had just finished a completely sold-out run on Broadway, playing Mary Todd Lincoln in the Tony Award-winning play Oh, Mary!
“Our rehearsal process is not too far off from a Broadway rehearsal process,” Monsoon mused. “DeLa and I have taught ourselves how to do this through the years. Neither of us planned it to be this big when we said ‘yes’ to each other many, many years ago. But now, through the years, the production has grown and both of us have grown alongside the production. Our friendship has grown. Our professional working relationship has gotten tighter and we’re streamlined.”
The original incarnation of this show hit the stage for the first time eight years ago, and it was just Monsoon and DeLa, producers Kevin Heard and Gus Lanza, and two microphones. They produced it themselves, they booked the travel, and even coordinated the ticket sales. Now, the cast and crew totals 14 people, and they need two tour buses to move everyone from city to city.
“It really emboldened us to be like, ‘We can grow this thing,’” DeLa said. “This has helped us to learn how to just step into the full kind of power of what we can do.”
The really fun thing about Monsoon’s and DeLa’s comedy is it can feel unpredictable and out of left field. So when I asked at the end of the interview if they had any closing thoughts, I should have seen one more surprise coming.
“Corey Saunders was the name of my bully in fifth grade,” DeLa told me. “So you’ve really redeemed the name for me. And I appreciate that.”
I struggled to find words for a few seconds, but Monsoon didn’t. “Why did you do it, Corey?” she asked, with a big grin.
If this interview was any indication, The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show will be a roller coaster that will make you raise an eyebrow one second, and then laugh riotously the next. And in a stressful time like the holidays or 2025 in general, laughter is necessary.
