Trending Now: Tess and Claudia host Strictly special for last time – Fans React

After more than a decade of presenting Strictly together, Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman said their final ‘keep dancing’ during Thursday’s Christmas special.

Just five days after they presented their last live show, the duo appeared in a pre-recorded festive edition of the dance contest.

Ms Daly, who has hosted the BBC show since its first episode in 2004, told viewers: ‘Thank you again for watching us over the years. It has meant the world to us.’

Ms Winkleman, 53, who replaced Bruce Forsyth as co-presenter in 2014, then tearfully told her co-star: ‘There is just one thing left for us to do. Come on Tess.’

‘For our very final time,’ added 56-year-old Ms Daly before the pair embraced.

The presenters then smiled, as they said their weekly catchphrase: ‘Keep dancing!’ It came just moments after they crowned Gogglebox star Scarlett Moffatt and her professional partner Vito Coppola the winners of the festive special.

Viewers of the BBC show saw stand-up comedian Babatunde Aleshe, 39, Westlife singer Brian McFadden, 45, Gladiators star Jodie Ounsley, 24, All Saints musician Melanie Blatt, 50, and EastEnders actor Nicholas Bailey, 54, battle it out to lift the Glitterball Trophy to be named the Strictly Christmas Champion.

Ms Moffatt, 35, danced a Cha Cha to Cher’s DJ Play A Christmas Song and received a perfect 40 out of 40 from judges Shirley Ballas, 65, Craig Revel Horwood, 60, Oti Mabuse, 35, and Anton Du Beke, 59.

When asked how she felt after being crowned winner of the special, Ms Moffatt – who shot to fame on Gogglebox in 2014 – said: ‘This is amazing! I feel like I should have prepared a speech! This is honestly the greatest gift that could have ever happened at Christmas. We’ve all just had the best time.’

Ms Moffatt, like controversial Strictly finalist and former Love Island contestant Amber Davies, has been dancing since she was a young girl and expressed worries online that her dance experience would mean she would never be asked to do the main series.

She wrote: ‘I know I’ll probably never get to dance on the main Strictly series because of my past dance experience when I was a little girl, so getting to be part of the Christmas special means everything to me. School wasn’t always easy for me, but dance was my safe place.’

During the special episode, Ms Daly was finally swept off her feet by show professional Aljaz Skorjanec as they performed a sizzling Argentine Tango.

Meanwhile, Ms Winkleman was given a grand goodbye by the show’s musical director Dave Arch, 63, with whom she has a long-running joke about an on-screen ‘romance’.

In the Christmas special, the band leader bids farewell in the style of the romcom Love Actually, holding up hand-written cue cards, just as actor Andrew Lincoln did for Keira Knightley in the 2003 film. In October, Ms Daly and Ms Winkleman announced they would leave the show at the end of the series, saying it was the ‘right time’.

The pair added: ‘We will have the greatest rest of this amazing series and we just want to say an enormous thank you to the BBC and to every single person who works on the show.’