How astronauts celebrate Christmas in space: out-of-this-world holiday photos
A Christmas out of this world! Joyful photos show astronauts celebrating the holidays with stockings and trees made from leftover food containers on NASA space stations
- The 1968 Apollo 8 mission was the first time humans spent Christmas in space and hosted a live broadcast on Christmas Eve morning.
- It wasn’t until 1973 that astronauts first celebrated Christmas on a NASA space station, Skylab, which also saw the first Christmas tree in space.
- The tree was made from leftover food containers and colorful stickers were used as an ornament
- Since then, astronauts have had artificial and real Christmas trees, hung stockings on doors, and even projected a burning Christmas log inside the International Space Station.
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More than 200 miles above the Earth’s surface, astronauts enjoy one Christmas celebration out of this world.
The space heroes may have spent many holidays away from friends and family, but they brought cheer to their tight quarters with Christmas trees, stockings hanging from doors and a Christmas log projected inside the International Space Station (ISS).
The 1968 Apollo 8 mission was the first crew to spend the holidays in space and celebrated by broadcasting the first image of Earth back home, along with a live broadcast on Christmas Eve morning.
The first Christmas tree in space: Astronauts Gerald P. Carr, William R. Pogue and Edward G. Gibson spent the holidays aboard NASA’s Skylab in 1973, which was the first space station of the United States. The crew assembled a tree from leftover food containers and decorated it with colorful stickers
Commander Frank Borman spoke during the broadcast, describing the moon as “big”, “lonely” and “forbidding”, but “makes you realize what you have on Earth”.
And five years later, humans celebrated the first holiday aboard a space station.
Three crew members of the 1973 Skylab 4 mission, a research platform in low Earth orbit, built a Christmas tree using leftover food containers, finished it with colorful stickers as ornaments and topped it with a cardboard cutout in the shape of a kite.
Since then, the tradition has continued over the decades as astronauts spend the holiday singing carols, exchanging gifts and watching holiday movies in hopes of bringing some cheer to the final frontier.
Swing around the Christmas tree: Makeshift tree branches were attached to a pole fixed to the ground since there was zero gravity on the station. And on top was a cardboard cutout in the shape of a kite
Decorate the hallways: Expedition 34, which occupied the ISS in 2012, had a real Christmas tree for the holidays, which they decorated with glittery pom pom ornaments and hung stockings inside a door. NASA’s Kevin Ford brought his guitar for the trip into space and played it on Christmas Day
The 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 image of the Earth that has since been known as the ‘Blue Marble’. Speaking during a live broadcast from space on Christmas Eve, Borman described how lonely the moon is
Christmas season is here: Kayla Barron shows off the presents she wrapped her six crewmates on Expedition 66 in 2021
Santa arrives on the ISS: Crew members always wear festive hats on Christmas Day, and since the station is in zero gravity, the tips of the hats are raised. Resupply missions before the holidays brought astronauts an artificial Christmas tree. Pictured is the Expedition 30 crew in 2011
Christmas isn’t the only holiday celebrated in space: The Hubble Space Telescope’s first servicing mission was launched aboard the space shuttle Endeavor in 1993, and mission specialist Jeffery Hoffman was the first person who celebrated Hanukkah in a spaceship. He brought a small dreidel that floated inside the craft
Expedition 24 flight engineer and NASA astronaut David A. Wolf posed for a photo with his menorah and dreidel to celebrate Hanukkah in 1997. The crew also had a small Christmas tree and dressed in an astronaut suit to look like Santa Claus.
Say Merry Christmas: NASA astronauts and Russian cosmonauts share the ISS and spend the holidays together. Valeri I. Tokarev of Roscosmos (left) and NASA astronaut William McArthur of Expedition took a festive photo of themselves in stockings while they were both on the ISS in 2005
It’s starting to look a lot like Christmas in space: Santa hats are worn annually at Christmas. In 2006, NASA’s Michael Lopez-Alegria and Sunita Williams and Russia’s Mikhail Tyurin showed off their hats in a photo
Silent Night: A projection of a Christmas log was shown on the ISS in 2020. Images of fire with stockings hanging from it made astronauts who spent the holiday 250 miles above the surface feel right at home. the earth.
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