The station is even equipped with Christmas decorations and a two-foot-tall fire-proofed artificial tree to deck the halls. Although it can be a struggle to locate them. “It’s the same as at home, when you know you’ve put them somewhere and you can never find them,” says Nespoli. “When I was looking for some piece of technical equipment, I found a box that said Christmas decorations. I made sure I recorded in our inventory management system exactly where they were.”  For many astronauts, their Christmas in space is the first time they have had the day off for several years. Nespoli attributes this to the uncanny knack his trainers had of identifying national holidays and making sure the astronauts were elsewhere. “On the 4th of July in the States, they send you to Moscow to do training and when it’s the Russian holiday they send you to the United States,” he says. “If you’re not careful you find yourself training in Star City [near Moscow] on Christmas Day.”  With all the festive bling, outfits and presents, how different is it having Christmas in space? For Nespoli, it was the real giant bauble in the window on Christmas Eve that was the true highlight. “On 24th December, we passed north of France and I saw the whole UK and Ireland lit up like a Christmas tree – my Christmas tree from space was the whole UK.”  One of the few things they cannot celebrate with on board the ISS – despite what you might gather from the movie Gravity – is alcohol. Although there have been rumours for years that the Russians have a secret stash of vodka on the ISS, this is extremely unlikely. “I never saw any alcohol on board,” says Nespoli. This is because the water processing system on the ISS, which recycles drinking water from the astronauts’ breath, sweat and urine, would be overwhelmed if any alcohol got into the plumbing. “If you took up alcohol you would be caught,” says Nespoli. “There is even a limit to the amount of disinfecting towels you can use because of fears of overwhelming the water system.”  So, what about those presents hanging on the doors of the astronaut quarters that Christmas morning? Is there really a cosmic Santa? The secret is revealed by another ISS astronaut, Andre Kuipers, who arrived at the station a year after Nespoli.  “There were also personalised socks waiting for us, filled with presents from our loved ones that had stayed behind on Earth,” Kuipers tells me in an email. “They had put these presents together in April, way before our arrival, to send up with a cargo ship…it was great!”  If you would like to comment on this article or anything else you have seen on Future, head over to our Facebook or Google+ page, or message us on Twitter.
Astronauts reveal what festive celebrations are like in orbit, why Velcro is crucial at dinnertime, and why space stations and alcohol do not mix.