Ed Sheeran and Elton John have finally released their highly anticipated Christmas single collaboration.

On Monday November 29, the iconic musicians confirmed that their festive duet would drop on Friday December 3 at 8am.

In their joint Instagram post, the pair also revealed that all the UK profits from the song will go to Ed Sheeran's Suffolk Music Foundation as well as Elton John's AIDS Foundation.

"All UK profits from this year’s Christmas period will go to the Ed Sheeran Suffolk Music Foundation (www.essmf.com) and the Elton John AIDS Foundation."

What are the Love Actually references in Ed Sheeran and Elton John's Christmas song?

The first teaser video shows Ed Sheeran giving his best Andrew Lincoln impression as he recreates the famous scene in Love Actually when Mark silent professes his love for Keira Knightley's character Juliet.

Instead of declaring his love, Ed announced the release of the song with he details written on the cards.

Sheeran wrote: "Hello, Last Christmas I received a call from my mate Elton John and he told me we should do a "Christmas song" and I replied yeah "maybe in 2022" but I actually wrote the chorus that day and here we are.

"Our Christmas song Merry Christmas is out this Friday.

"Go pre-order or pre-save it now.

"It has sleigh bells, a lot of them..."

Listen to Ed Sheeran and Elton John's Christmas song here

Fans were invited on Thursday, December 2 to tune into a Youtube premiere at 8 am on December 3 as the pair counted down to the release of their new song.

The premiere video shows the duo telling the story of how the festive number came to be. 

In a second teaser post, they added: "This was an absolute blast!

"Our music video for ‘Merry Christmas’ is coming this Friday."

Fans couldn't contain their excitement about the festive announcement either. 

One follower wrote: "This is REALLY GOOD!! I could see this as a timeless classic Christmas song for sure!!!"

While another user commented:"I absolutely love this you two are incredible," followed by three red hearts.

Initially, the Step Into Christmas singer had to convince Sheeran to come on board for the Christmas number.

"I said to Elton, I was like, 'I don't really want to do a Christmas song unless we're going in,'"Sheeran said on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. 

Both musicians have just released new albums this year Sheeran released = (pronounced Equals) on October 29, while John collaborated on The Lockdown Sessions which came out on October 22.