Chelsea's Premiership title hopes suffered a severe battering at The Valley when they crashed 4-2 to a rampant Charlton who gained their first victory in six games.
From the moment Charlton took the lead after 46 seconds they held the initiative and a brilliant display from Paolo Di Canio helped to produce the shock scoreline.
Chelsea, beaten only twice this season, had conceded only five goals in their previous nine away games but dismal defending from the visitors and sparkling attacking play from the home side caused their downfall.
A well flighted Di Canio corner was headed into the net by an unmarked Hermann Hreidarsson in the first minute and the Icelandic international would have had a second, but for Carlo Cudicini's fine save.
It looked for a brief spell when Chelsea equalised that they might take control of the game, after John Terry had stooped low to head home Adrian Mutu's free-kick on nine minutes.
Charlton regained the lead on 34 minutes when Di Canio cleverly dummied a through pass to him, letting the ball run onto Jonatan Johansson who raced clear and his deflected cross allowed Addicks skipper Matt Holland to head in from close range.
Two goals in five minutes early in the second half put Charlton in charge.
The third came in the 48th minute with another fine piece of play from Di Canio, as despite having defenders around him he managed to get in a hard low cross and Johansson, standing unmarked at the far post, tapped in to the goal.
Worse was to follow for Chelsea as they allowed Jason Euell to control the ball in the penalty area and fire into the net for his first goal for four months.
Although sub Eidur Gudjohnsen pulled one back for the Blues they were well beaten and the Addicks couldn't have celebrated their biggest crowd since moving back to The Valley in any better fashion than with this Christmas cracker.