RuPaul’s Drag Race season 12 sisters Jackie Cox and Jan Sport are currently on the road with their first-ever joint holiday tour, Jackie & Jan’s Jingle Jam.
Both Cox and Sport are New York City queens who competed in season 12 and have toured the world with their fellow Drag Race costars. This time, however, these two drag superstars are headlining a joint tour just in time for the holidays. In an exclusive interview with Out, Cox and Sport talk about their holiday traditions growing up, the Jingle Jam tour, and a brand-new holiday song that was tailor-made for the gays.
“My holiday experience growing up was a huge, huge, huge party on Christmas Eve,” Sport tells Out. “We would have everybody from Staten Island, Long Island, Brooklyn. They were all coming to the Sport household in Central New Jersey. And we would just have so much fun. There would be too much food, too much booze, and a lot of fun.”
Sport adds, “My dad is a DJ, so the next day he would spin all of his Christmas records. Like, Christina Aguilera’s ‘The Christmas Song (Holiday Remix)’ would be playing. My mom would be baking cinnamon buns, and we would always do our little scratch-offs at the breakfast table.”
Meanwhile, Cox notes that she had a pretty different holiday experience growing up. “My mom is not Christian at all, but she felt bad. I mostly lived with her growing up,” she says. “My grandparents and my dad did celebrate Christmas. If I was with them, we would definitely do I guess more of a traditional Christmas. But my mom didn’t really know anything about Christmas except the pageantry of it. She felt bad for me.”
Cox continues, “Obviously, I was a very gay child and I love sparkly things, so we put up the tree, and the stockings, and the presents, but we didn’t really eat anything specific. There were a couple of Persian traditions at this time of year around the winter solstice that we enjoyed. It’s called Shabe Yalda, which is on the winter solstice, and the big thing there is to eat pomegranates at the end of the harvest. Maybe we’ll have a bowl of pomegranates sitting on the stage at the Jingle Jam.”
When it comes to the Jackie & Jan’s Jingle Jam tour, Cox describes it as “the most amazing traditional Christmas cabaret meets Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion.” Sport also highlights that their mission is to “make the biggest and gayest holiday show that you could see.” Overall, they want to create a party environment with this holiday tour, making sure that audiences are not only feeling jolly, but also energized and entertained.
Along with their new tour, Sport is on track to release a new song that captures her experience visiting family for the holidays. “I feel like this song is definitely another nod to my past, and it is called ‘Christmas Hookup,’” she explains. “When I would go home [during my college years], I would get on the apps and I would see somebody from my high school… and honey, I went to an all-boys Christian school, so that was Santa’s greatest gift to me. So I wanted to write a song about it, and I did.”
She continues, “It’s funny because this might be a controversial song. I’ve heard people say, ‘What the hell are you talking about? Hooking up with somebody from your high school in your car?’ I didn’t know that that wasn’t a universal experience for all. So I’m happy to either give light to this experience that some of us have, or really open people’s eyes to these possibilities around Christmastime.”
If you can’t tell already, Jackie & Jan’s Jingle Jam is definitely a hilarious, campy, and high-energy tour for drag fans to check out during this time of year. “The fans have seen us perform together, but not at all like this,” Cox says. “I’m excited because, as everyone famously knows, I’m not a dancer. But we’re going to put me through a little bit of my paces, and hopefully I don’t fall. I’m excited to not fall. That is my gift to you.”
Watch Out’s full interview with Jackie Cox and Jan Sport below. Find tickets and more information about Jackie & Jan’s Jingle Jam on the tour’s official website.