The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show begins West Coast run

Since 2018, the Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show has been a beacon of light in the sometimes fraught holiday season. Heading home to family gatherings can be a huge stress this time of year, but my husband and I have found annual solace in spending a December evening with these immensely talented drag queens.

One of the many impressive things about the show — a mix of comedy, double entendres, and song parodies — is that it’s completely rewritten and reimagined each year. Writing a two-hour-plus show, not to mention choreographing, producing, and directing it, seems like a miracle when you consider that Jinkx and BenDeLaCreme generally start in September.

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This year’s show, which had us laughing out loud in a theater full of queer folks and supportive allies, revolves around an uproariously bizarre “Mr. Fir” character, who guides the audience through four not-quite-connected festive stories via “The Gingerbread House of Horrors.”

The show, which has a short intermission halfway through, covers everything from how AI is rotting our brains to the rampant consumerism that has replaced mainstay gifts like bicycles with silly fads like Labubu dolls. And there are plenty of attractive dancers in the show, often wearing very little (as in a sketch that imagines Rudolph and friends as strippers), as well as show favorite, Hunky the Elf (DeLa’s longtime partner).

We saw the show in Cleveland in early December, and it then wove its way through the Midwest, and will be moving to Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia by year’s end. Both Jinkx and DeLa have spent years in the Seattle drag scene, and the Emerald City features a handful of shows itself.

The show has some VIP options available when you purchase your ticket, and I highly recommend the Q&A with the two stars after each performance. During ours, the ladies talked about what how they get through awful political times, like what we’re living in.

“The answer [to how we stay positive] is in the show. Often times, when we’re writing the show, we’re writing about whatever it is that we’re trying to deal with and figure it out. It’s hard to tell yourself, ‘The way you keep going is you keep going and you sing and dance through the war,’ right?” said DeLa.

“[My character] is exceptionally positive, so I have to step into that. And it’s impossible not to force a smile at her — and you do feel better. Drag queens have been folks who get on stage and get in front of a crowd, whether it be in a theater or at a rally, and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to be okay. We’re getting there together. We’ve been through this.”

DeLa also stressed that community is bigger than any one of us.

“When we get together in these spaces, this exchange of energy is certainly what gets me through. I really do feel better because I know these are all people who are all on the same side of things right now,” she added.

Remaining dates (tickets here):
Phoenix: December 17, 2025
San Diego: December 18, 2025
San Francisco: December 19, 2025
Medford, Ore.: December 20, 2025
Portland: December 22, 2025
Seattle: December 23-28, 2025
Vancouver, B.C.: December 30, 2025

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