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Celebrating the Holiday Season in Space

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A woman with short, dark hair and wearing a Santa hat, maroon shirt, and khaki pants smiles with arms outspread while floating in microgravity in front of Christmas stockings.
ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti pictured aboard the International Space Station on Dec. 20, 2014, during Expedition 42.
Credit: NASA

Crew members aboard the International Space Station celebrate the holiday season in a unique way while living and working at the orbiting laboratory. Each crew member, including the current Expedition 72, spends time enjoying the view of Earth from the space station, privately communicating with their friends and families, and sharing a joint meal with their expedition crewmates, while continuing experiments and station maintenance.

The famous Earthrise photograph from Apollo 8
This view of the rising Earth greeted the Apollo 8 astronauts William Ander, Frank Borman, and James Lovell on Dec. 24, 1968, as they approached from behind the Moon after the fourth nearside lunar orbit.
Credit: NASA

As the first crew to spend Christmas in space and leave Earth orbit, Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders, celebrated while circling the Moon in December 1968. The crew commemorated Christmas Eve by reading opening verses from the Bible’s Book of Genesis as they broadcast scenes of the lunar surface below. An estimated one billion people across 64 countries tuned in to the crew’s broadcast.

A black and white image of an aluminum Christmas tree
Skylab 4 astronauts Gerald Carr, Edward Gibson, and William Pogue trim their homemade Christmas tree in December 1973.
Credit: NASA

In 1973, Skylab 4 astronauts Gerald Carr, Edward Gibson, and William Pogue celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s in space, as the first crew to spend the harvest festival and ring in the new year while in orbit. The crew built a homemade tree from leftover food containers, used colored decals as decorations, and topped it with a cardboard cutout in the shape of a comet. Carr and Pogue conducted a seven-hour spacewalk to change out film canisters and observe the passing Comet Kohoutek on Dec. 15, 1973. Once back inside the space station, the crew enjoyed a holiday dinner complete with fruitcake, communicated with their families, and opened presents.

Hoffman celebrates the first Hannukah in space, with a spinning dreidel floating nearby
NASA astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman pictured with a dreidel during Hanukkah in December 1993.
Credit: NASA

After NASA launched the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope into Earth’s orbit in 1990, NASA sent a space shuttle crew on a mission, STS-61, to service the telescope. In 1993, NASA astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman celebrated Hanukkah after completing the third spacewalk of the servicing mission. Hoffman celebrated with a traveling menorah and dreidel.

Two white men with dark mustaches and wearing Santa suits smile as they float in microgravity.
STS103-340-036 (19-27 December 1999) — Wearing Santa hats, astronauts John M. Grunsfeld and Steven L. Smith blend with the season for a brief celebration on the mid deck of the Space Shuttle Discovery. The interruption was very brief as the two mission specialists shortly went about completing their suit-up process in order to participate in STS-103 space walk activity, performing needed work on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).
Credit: NASA

As NASA continued to support another Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, the STS-103 crew celebrated the first space shuttle Christmas aboard Discovery in 1999. NASA astronauts Curtis Brown, Scott Kelly, Steven Smith, John Grunsfeld, and Michael Foale, along with ESA (European Space Agency) astronauts Jean-François Clervoy and Claude Nicollier enjoyed duck foie gras on Mexican tortillas, cassoulet, and salted pork with lentils. Smith and Grunsfeld completed repairs on the telescope during a spacewalk on Dec. 24, 1999, and at least one American astronaut has celebrated Christmas in space every year since.

Expedition 1 crew members Yuri Gidzenko of Roscosmos, left, NASA astronaut William Shepherd, and Sergei Krikalev of Roscosmos reading a Christmas message in December 2000.
Credit: NASA

In November 2000, the arrival of Expedition 1 crew members, NASA astronaut William Shepherd and Roscosmos cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, aboard the International Space Station, marked the beginning of a continuous presence in space. As the first crew to celebrate the holiday season at the laboratorial outpost, they began the tradition of reading a goodwill message to those back on Earth. Shepherd honored a naval tradition of writing a poem as the first entry of the new year in the ship’s log.

For more than 24 years, NASA has supported a continuous U.S. human presence aboard the International Space Station, through which astronauts have learned to live and work in space for extended periods of time. As NASA supports missions to and from the station, crew members have continued to celebrate the holidays in space.

Expedition 70 flight engineer NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli’s husband and daughters made a felt menorah for her to celebrate Hanukkah during her mission. Since astronauts can’t light real candles aboard the space station, Moghbeli pinned felt “lights” for each night of the eight-day holiday. A dreidel spun in weightlessness will continue spinning until it comes in contact with another object but can’t land on any of its four faces. Expedition 70 crew members recorded a holiday message for those back on Earth.

Expedition 70 NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli’s felt menorah and dreidel that she used to celebrate Hanukkah
Expedition 70 NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli’s felt menorah and dreidel that she used to celebrate Hanukkah in December 2023.
Credit: NASA
a man and a woman in Santa hats pose for a picture on the International Space Station while holding a HAM radio
NASA astronauts Don Pettit and Suni Williams, Expedition 72 flight engineer and commander respectively, pose for a fun holiday season portrait while speaking on a ham radio inside the International Space Station’s Columbus laboratory module.
Credit: NASA
Expedition 72 video holiday message from the International Space Station.
Credit: NASA

The International Space Station is a convergence of science, technology, and human innovation that enables research not possible on Earth. The orbiting laboratory is a springboard for developing a low Earth economy and NASA’s next great leaps in exploration, including missions to the Moon under the Artemis campaign and, ultimately, human exploration of Mars.

Go here for more holiday memories onboard the space station. To learn more about the International Space Station, its research, and its crew, at:

https://www.nasa.gov/station

News Media Contacts:

Claire O’Shea

Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1100

claire.a.o’shea@nasa.gov

Sandra Jones
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov

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