Imagine Christmas in zero-gravity. Pouring the gravy on your turkey dinner would certainly be a bit of a challenge for a start. I’m not sure how you’d even begin to wrap your pressies up without the sellotape, the wrapping paper and the present floating away. And I don’t think space stations actually have chimneys for Santa to get down anyway, so how would your pressies be delivered in the first place?

There are, however, a small group of quite amazing people who have faced all these things and have actually managed to spend Christmas in space. These fantastic photos (below) of the festive season onboard the International Space Station (ISS), Mir, and Skylab are from the NASA archive, and are a glimpse into what Christmas is like when you’re in earth orbit and very far from home…

And as a bonus, here’s the famous video of astronaut and social media star Commander Chris Hadfield performing the David Bowie classic ‘Space Oddity’ while actually in space. How rock n roll is that?

For much more Christmas stuff, direct your mouse into orbit here.