Jimmy Fallon, Anna Kendrick, Darlene Love and The Roots Sing "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" With Classroom Instruments

"That was the best!" Pitch Perfect 3's Kendrick says

By Zach Johnson Dec 19, 2017 2:00 PMTags

For 28 years, during David Letterman's tenure on Late Night and The Late Show, Darlene Love sang her holiday hit "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)." But, after his retirement in 2015, the singer needed a new place to showcase her talents. Enter Jimmy Fallon's The Tonight Show.

In Monday's episode of the NBC series, Fallon asked Love to sing the smash with Anna Kendrick and The Roots' Damon "Tuba Gooding Jr." Bryson, Stro Elliot, Kirk "Captain Kirk" Douglas, James "Kamal" Gray, Mark Kelley, James Poyser, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter—but with a twist. The group had to perform using "classroom instruments."

When Kendrick joined Fallon for an interview later, she couldn't get over the festive sing-along. "Remember earlier when we sang with Darlene Love? Oh, my God! That was the best!" she gushed. "I was watching backstage and I was like, I can tell that I've got that crazy nervous energy where I'm so excited but I'm so nervous that I just need bubble wrap to be like, 'Ooh!'"

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"Classroom Instruments" is a popular recurring segment on The Tonight Show, and Fallon has covered a holiday tune before—in 2012—with Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You."

(E! and NBC are both members of the NBCUniversal family.)