December 9, 2025, 2:02 pm | Read time: 3 minutes

“Last Christmas” is one of the most successful Christmas songs of all time. Even now, more than 40 years after its release, it’s hard to avoid the sentimental classic about lost love during the holiday season. Currently, the song by the British band Wham! holds the second spot on the German charts. On YouTube, the music video, with over a billion views (as of December 9, 2025), is among the most streamed Christmas songs worldwide. But where exactly did George Michael celebrate Christmas in the video with his new flame, friends, and his ex (all sporting extreme blow-dried hairstyles)?

Every Year … – “Last Christmas” has always divided opinions

While some celebrate “Last Christmas” as a classic essential to the holiday season, others find the song overly repetitive, sentimental, or simply dislike the 1980s synthpop. The video also polarizes, caught between nostalgic-charming Christmas cult and kitschy-trashy overproduction.

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Winter magic against an impressive mountain backdrop, perms, and George Michael in a festive gathering: It’s undisputed where George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, the members of Wham!, celebrated Christmas with their “cinematic friends” in the snowy resort and chalet.

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The Filming Location of “Last Christmas”

From the 56th second, the video shows a gondola with the inscription “Saas-Fee”—a winter sports resort in the Swiss Alps near the Italian border and close to Zermatt. The area around Saas-Fee boasts several “four-thousanders,” or mountains over 4,000 meters high. According to the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND),” the Swiss canton of Bern was initially intended as the music video backdrop. However, due to a lack of snow, the crew quickly moved to Saas-Fee, which still promotes its Wham! filming location status today.

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The mountain cabin seen in the video after about a minute is also located in the car-free Swiss glacier village of Saas-Fee. The standalone house at the village’s edge was found with Chalet Schiechten, as reported by the Swiss media portal “Blick.” Incidentally, to reach the chalet, you don’t need to take the gondola up, as the music video suggests.

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Since the chalet lacked a fireplace, the interior shots, specifically the festive Christmas scenes, were filmed at the Steinmatte Course and Cultural Center, part of the Saas-Fee community.

Residents Still Remember the Video Shoot Today

Many in Saas-Fee still recall the music video shoot nearly 40 years ago. According to “Blick,” it’s still said that the crew arrived in summer shoes and light jackets and had to be outfitted for winter on-site.

In December 2016, following George Michael’s death, a Christmas tree was erected in Saas-Fee in his memory. Undoubtedly, his Christmas hit will continue to live on in Saas-Fee and around the globe for a long time.