Nine Festive Holiday Celebrations Aboard the ISS: 25 Years of Space-Station Traditions

For the past 25 years, crews of astronauts have celebrated the holidays roughly 250 miles above Earth aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Though they orbit the planet every 90 minutes at about 17,500 miles per hour, many holiday traditions aboard the station look surprisingly familiar to those on the ground.

Meals, Menus and Special Cargo

Special holiday meals are prepared and packaged by NASA’s Space Food Systems Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Crews select menus before launch with guidance from nutritionists and food scientists to ensure meals meet medical and taste requirements in microgravity. Because some foods and condiments behave differently in orbit, astronauts can eat turkey but typically cannot use loose table salt or drink carbonated beverages like seltzer.

Cargo resupply missions that arrive ahead of holidays often include "Holiday Bulk Overwrapped Bags" stocked with both fresh and shelf-stable items. Typical contents have included clams, oysters, green beans and smoked salmon, alongside long-life treats such as icing, candies, almond butter and hummus that survive the journey and storage.

Connecting With Home

Beyond food, the holidays are a time for connection. Crew members take advantage of video calls and recorded greetings to reach family and friends back on Earth. NASA says those messages are, in the agency’s words, “a reminder that even in space, home is never far away.”

“A reminder that even in space, home is never far away.” — NASA

To underscore that bond, NASA astronauts Suni Williams, Nick Hague, Butch Wilmore and Don Pettit recorded a holiday message wishing Earth a merry Christmas and a happy holiday season on December 23, 2024.

Browse the Photo Archive

Explore a quarter-century of ISS holiday celebrations and view images from crews who have marked the season while orbiting our planet. (Click images to expand to full screen.)

Expedition 4 crew members, former NASA astronauts Daniel Bursch and Carl Walz, along with Rosocosmos cosmonaut Yuri Onifriyenko, pose for a Christmas photo in December 2022.Image: NASA.

Expedition 13 crew members, Rosocosmos cosmonaut Valery I. Tokarav (left) and former NASA astronaut William McArthur, pose with Christmas stockings in December 2005.Image: NASA.

The six Expedition 30 crew members assembled in the U.S. Destiny laboratory aboard the space station for a Christmas celebration in December 2011.Image: NASA.

ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti pictured above the space station on December 20, 2014 during Expedition 42.Image NASA.

Expedition 50 crew members celebrate the holidays aboard the orbiting laboratory in December 2016.Image: NASA.

Four Expedition 70 crewmates join each other inside the space station and join each other inside the space station’s Unity module for a Christmas Day Meal in December 2023. From left are Flight Engineer Koichi Wakata from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency); Commander Andreas Mogensen from ESA (European Space Agency); and NASA Flight Engineers Loral O’Hara and Jasmin Moghbeli.Image: NASA.

NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 Commander Suni Williams shows off a holiday decoration of a familiar reindeer aboard the ISS on December 16, 2024. The Decoration was crafted with excess hardware, cargo bags, and recently-delivered Santa Hats.Image: NASA.

NASA astronauts Expedition 72 Flight Engineer Don Petit (left) and Commander Suni Williams (right) pose for a fun holiday season portrait while speaking on a ham radio inside the space station’s Columbus laboratory module.Image: NASA.