Ed Sheeran Is All Melancholy Christmas in New Video ‘Under the Tree’

Melancholy Christmas songs are the best Christmas songs and Ed Sheeran sure seems to know it. His new holiday ballad, “Under the Tree,” longs for the one thing that St. Nick can’t bring him: the lover he has lost.

Sheeran wrote “Under the Tree” with Johnny McDaid for the upcoming animated film That Christmas, premiering on Netflix next month. The video for the song, released today, intersperses live-action Sheeran and his costar Claudia Jessie (Bridgerton) with animation from the movie. The pair play a couple no longer together, despite Sheeran’s most pleading attempts for a rekindling. “There is nothing under the tree that I wished for/I want you to come back to me/And be like before,” he sings.

That Christmas is based on the children’s book series by Richard Curtis, who wrote the screenplay for the modern Christmas classic Love, Actually. Curtis directed Sheeran’s video for “Under the Tree,” choosing to film the clip in Southwold in Suffolk, which evokes the movie’s fictional town of Wellington-on-Sea.

“Richard Curtis made my fav Christmas film, and TV special. He came round my house in 2021 and showed me a rough of his new one, then asked me to make a song for it. How could I resist,” Sheeran says in a statement. “Having kids, I struggle to find great great movies for very young kids to watch at Christmas, and this ticks all the boxes. This song is written about a character in the film who wants to spend Christmas with his dad, but doesn’t get to. It’s a heartbreaking scene, and something so many people go through every year being alone at Christmas. Hope everyone loves the song.”

That Christmas begins streaming on Netflix on Dec. 4, with a voice cast that includes Brian Cox as Santa, Fiona Shaw, Jodie Whittaker, and Bill Nighy.