Now in its eighth year, the Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Show should be considered Christmas canon. They are hotter (and younger) than Mrs. Claus, their show is funnier than The Nutcracker, and they have more love in their hearts than your wretched family members. I caught up with the BFFs ahead of their five-night stint at the Moore Theatre to discuss their favorite Christmas songs, least favorite gifts, and the ethics of coal this holiday season. by Audrey Vann Now in its eighth year, the Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Show should be considered Christmas canon. They are hotter (and younger) than Mrs. Claus, their show is funnier than The Nutcracker, and they have more love in their hearts than your wretched family members. I caught up with the BFFs ahead of their five-night stint at the Moore Theatre to discuss their favorite Christmas songs, least favorite gifts, and the ethics of coal this holiday season. What does Christmas Day on tour look like? BenDeLaCreme: We have a long-standing tradition of hosting a party in Seattle every Christmas Day for performers, chosen family, and other members of the community to get together on our one day off, since many of us have long stretches of holiday shows. I no longer have a home base in Seattle, but still, we have everyone on this cast and crew, and all of our local friends in Seattle who we don't get to see as much anymore. We have an all-day Christmas party with a lot of food, drinks, catching up, and usually karaoke! It's very homey and familial. I’m so glad that we still get to have that. What are your go-to Christmas karaoke songs? DeLa: Oh, well, we are definitely not karaoke-ing Christmas songs! Trust me, we’ve had our fill of Christmas music. My go-to karaoke song in general is Shaggy's “Mr. Boombastic.” Jinkx Monsoon: If I had to, I would do like “Greensleeves” so that everyone has to confront why it’s a Christmas song. What are some of your all-time favorite Christmas songs?  Jinkx: I have fewer, so I'll go first. There's a song on our pre-show playlist called “Donde Esta Santa Claus,” sung by a little kid to his mom. He knows he should be in bed, but he can't, because he's too excited to see Santa—the chorus is “¿Mamacita, donde esta Santa Claus?” We have a cast dance that we all do when that song plays. It brings up a lot of warm memories. Then, I don't know, I like “Oh, Holy Night” because it sounds so ominous and dark, especially when played on a pipe organ. It sounds like a bad premonition. DeLa: I'm very meticulous about having Christmas music during our show intermission that gets people in the holiday vibe while still being pretty obscure. I'm giving away my secret right now, but many of the songs from our show playlist are from this compilation album called the American Song-Poem Christmas, which is all songs from the ’60s and ’70s that were created through scammy magazine ads that said, “Send in your Christmas lyrics, and if they're good enough, you’ll be a star!” They were sent all these atrocious lyrics that people wrote in, and hired some really bad singers to make them into an album. Anyways, it generated all these insane songs like “Santa Came in on a Nuclear Missile,” about a mutated Santa showing up, and instead of giving the girl a teddy bear, he gives her a laser gun. She's like, “Oh no, please, go back to being regular old, Santa!” I also like “Ole year Christmas,” which is basically a bunch of total nonsense phrases set to a beat. One of my favorites is called “Daddy, Is Santa Really Six Foot Four?” which is from the perspective of a little girl who is watching her mom cheat on her dad and singing to her dad about how Santa is carrying a gun. And the main lyric is, “He carries a torch for Mama and a gun for you.” It’s the most bizarre, weird song. What is the most memorable Christmas gift you've ever received?  Jinkx: I think for me, and this is gonna sound so materialistic and capitalist for who I am today, but I don't think I've ever been so happy as when I got the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It was a Nintendo 64 video game. My entire life, people had given me gifts that I had no interest in, and when they found out that I liked nutcrackers, that's all I got for years. When my family found out I was into video games, it was finally an acceptable gift to give a “boy” that I actually liked. This is part of an ongoing conversation I like to have about buying gifts for your queer relatives, because it's like, do you acknowledge the fact that they're queer, or is that outing them? Video Games were where the Venn diagram finally met, where they finally knew what to get me, and I actually liked it. DeLa: Because you said memorable and not favorite, I’ll go in a different direction. I have such a distinct memory of being young and very, very queer—I'm talking like seven years old—and my family still trying to figure out what the hell to do with that. I always wanted My Little Ponies and things like that, but I would get action figures. I remember getting one that was a He-Man villain or something with a robot elephant trunk. It scared the shit out of me! When I opened it, I started crying. I was terrified. Once my family figured out they could give me art supplies, everything was cool, but for the most part, gift-giving was always this weird, tricky thing when I was a kid. This sounds so Pollyanna, but as an adult, I'm not a huge gift-giver. My favorite thing is Christmas Day and when people show up to drink eggnog and spend time together. I’m making myself want to vomit as I say this, but spending that time with those people, and the fact that people commit to doing it, even though we're all performing and exhausted by the time Christmas rolls around, that, to me, is my absolute favorite thing I get from my community. Well, okay, so you both have a bit of a history of living in Seattle, if you were to take someone on a festive outing in Seattle. Where would you take them? What would you do?  Jinkx: I know it's touristy and I know it's cliche, but I lived in Seattle for 14 years, and I never got sick of walking down to Pike Place Market. Still, every time I'm there, I go on a walk to the market for stones and gem-based jewelry, probably about two times a week. I’d take them there for sure. Then, probably take them to Queen Anne for dinner, maybe an artsy film, if I was in the mood, otherwise, we'd end up at Dave Busters, because as a sober person that is, strangely, my new favorite place to go. DeLa: I'm in Seattle Center a lot because that's where we work on a lot of the show. Once the Christmas lights are up, and once Seattle Center starts feeling Christmasy, I really do love it. I'm a nerd for the Space Needle and that whole area. And, you know, I'm always going to be plugging our show! One of the most special things about Seattle is the performance community. There are so many incredible shows, and specifically queer performance artists who are making amazing stuff for the community. Whenever I'm able to see Scott Shoemaker’s War On Christmas, I'm always there. And, for so many years, the Dina Martina Christmas show was one of my biggest traditions. There are just amazing alternative holiday offerings in town, and so hitting as many of those as possible is always my recommendation. Lastly, who deserves coal in their stocking this year? Jinkx: I think they all just posed for a Vanity Fair photoshoot. I would just copy and paste that photo [caption]. DeLa: We might need to rethink coal this year because of all the additional mining. Jinkx: It’s always a fight over where to put nuclear waste, so maybe it’s in their stocking. Then they can sit with what they’ve done! See the Jinkx DeLa Holiday Show at the Moore Theatre Dec 23-24 26-28 ...read more read less