SURVIVE THE SEASON WITH LAUGHTER

JINKX MONSOON AND BENDELACREME, STARS OF 'RUPAUL'S DRAG RACE,' INVITE YOU TO THEIR 'HOLIDAY SHOW,' FULL OF CAMPY MAGIC AND MIRTH AND, MOST IMPORTANT, COMMUNITY

- BY CANDACE HANSEN

QUEER COMEDY is a tool for survival. Especially during the holidays. “Comedy helps people access our right to joy,” Ben DeLa Creme (DeLa for short) says.

She believes laughing breaks down the walls people build to protect their hearts from a hostile world from which “The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show,” her annual extravaganza with best friend Jinkx Monsoon, provides a reprieve for performers and fans alike. Laughter was what DeLa desperately needed as a young college student who had to create a gig to avoid going home for the holidays, a conundrum many queer fans can relate to. “I disliked the holidays so much,” DeLa says, explaining the challenging family dynamics she'd escaped by moving to Seattle from Litchfield, Conn., to study fine art in the late aughts. Inspired by “Peewee’s Playhouse Christmas Special,” she learned she could connect with her community and chosen family through performing outrageous drag numbers that revered and ridiculed the season. Her old show, “Homo for the Holidays,” ran for nearly a decade at West Hall in Seattle, becoming a holiday tradition for the Capitol Hill community of artists and queer kids who needed a space for joy and connection.