Expedition 1 arrived on the ISS on 2 November 2000, celebrating their first Christmas on board the station later that year.[2] Other celebrations included Expedition 30, with the arrival of Donald Pettit, Oleg Kononenko, and André Kuipers.[3][4] The station has been continuously occupied since 2000, so every Christmas has been experienced by a crew.[5] The holiday is popular enough that one of the traditions that has developed is having a Christmas dinner.[5]
On 25 December 2011 the crew of Expedition 30 took a break on Christmas to a take crew photo.[6] This included Dan Burbank, Oleg Kononenko, Don Pettit, Anatoly Ivanishin, Andre Kuipers, and Anton Shkaplerov.[6]
On 24 December 2013, astronauts made a rare Christmas Eve extravehicular activity, installing a new ammonia pump for the station's cooling system. The faulty cooling system had failed earlier in the month, halting many of the station's science experiments. Astronauts had to brave a "mini blizzard" of noxious ammonia while installing the new pump. It was only the second Christmas Eve spacewalk in NASA history.[7]
On 25 December 2016 the crew celebrated Christmas by floating in micro-gravity and opening Christmas presents recently delivered on a Japanese cargo spacecraft.[8] One astronaut wore a Santa hat in orbit.[8] The French astronaut Thomas Pesquet shared special French food with station crew.[8][5] Pesquet also made a Christmas-time special video for the ESA.[5]