More than 200 miles above the Earth’s surface, astronauts are enjoying an out-of-this-world Christmas celebration.
The spacefaring heroes may have spent many of the holidays away from friends and family, but they’re bringing joy to their cramped quarters with Christmas trees, stockings hung on the doors, and Yule logs on display inside the International Space Station (ISS). ).
The Apollo 8 mission in 1968 was the crew’s first vacation in space and was celebrated by broadcasting the first photo of Earth at home, along with a live broadcast on Christmas Eve morning.
First Christmas Tree in Space: Astronauts Gerald Carr, William R. Pogue, and Edward J. Crew assembled tree from leftover containers and decorated with colorful stickers
Commander Frank Borman spoke on the broadcast, describing the Moon as “spacious,” “lonely,” and “forbidden,” but “it makes you very aware of what you have here on Earth.”
Five years later, humans celebrate their first vacation on the space station.
Three crew members of the 1973 Skylab 4 mission, a research platform in low Earth orbit, built a Christmas tree out of leftover food containers, finished it with colorful stickers as ornaments, and covered it with cardboard cutouts to comet shape.
This tradition has continued for decades as astronauts spend their holidays singing Christmas carols, exchanging gifts, and watching holiday movies in hopes of rejoicing at the final frontier.
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree: Tree branches have been temporarily attached to poles anchored to the ground because there is no gravity inside the station. And on top of that there’s a cardboard cutout in the shape of a comet
ROOM DECORATIONS: Expedition 34, which occupied the International Space Station in 2012, has a real Christmas tree for the holidays, decorated with sparkly pompoms and stockings hung inside the entryway. Kevin Ford of NASA took his guitar on a space trip and played it on Christmas Day
First Christmas: The first Christmas spent in space was in 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission. The crew, Frank Borman, James Lovell Jr. and William Anders, shared the first photograph of Earth in what has since become known as the “Blue Marble”. Speaking on a live broadcast from space on Christmas Eve morning, Bormann described how lonely the Moon can be
Christmas is here: Kayla Barron shows off the presents she wrapped for her six crew on Expedition 66 in 2021
Santa arrives on the International Space Station: Party hats are always worn by crew members on Christmas Day, and because the station has no gravity, the head of the hat stands upright. A pre-holiday resupply mission brings the astronauts an artificial Christmas tree. Pictured is the crew of Expedition 30 in 2011
Christmas isn’t the only holiday celebrated in space: The first Hubble Space Telescope service mission was launched aboard the space shuttle Endeavor in 1993, and mission specialist Jeffrey Hoffman was the first to celebrate Hanukkah aboard a vehicle space. He brought along a small dreidel, which he came aboard
Flight 24 engineer and NASA astronaut David A. Wolfe took this photo with the menorah and Dreidel to celebrate Hanukkah in 1997. The crew also had a small Christmas tree and wore astronaut suits to look like Santa Claus
Say Merry Christmas: NASA astronauts and Russian cosmonauts share the International Space Station and spend the holidays together. Tokarev of Roscosmos (left) and NASA astronaut William MacArthur of Expeditions take a celebratory photo of them holding stockings aboard the International Space Station in 2005
It’s starting to look a lot like Christmas in space: Santa hats are worn every year at Christmas. In 2006, NASA’s Michael Lopez-Alegria, Russia’s Sunita Williams and Mikhail Tyurin displayed the hat in a photo.
Silent Night: Record Yule projection exhibited on the International Space Station in 2020. Fiery image with stockings hanging above it makes astronauts feel right at home spending their vacation 250 miles above the Earth
