Space Station Astronauts Offer Holiday Greetings – Monday, December 22, 2025

Expedition 74 commander Mike Fincke of NASA, along with NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Chris Williams and JAXA (Japan Aerospsace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui provided holiday greetings from the International Space Station in a pre-recorded message on Dec. 17. The crew is currently in the midst of a long-duration mission aboard the microgravity laboratory to advance scientific knowledge and demonstrate new technologies for future human and robotic exploration flights as part of NASA’s Moon and Mars exploration approach, including lunar missions through NASA’s Artemis program.  Join NASA as we go forward to the Moon and on to Mars -- discover the latest on Earth, the Solar System and beyond with a weekly update in your inbox. Subscribe at: https://www.nasa.gov/subscribe

What is said in the film

Greetings to planet Earth. All of our friends and family from expedition 74 aboard the International Space Station, flying high above. Thinking of you during this holiday season. During the season, we're really. It's about spending time with family and friends and enjoying time together and reflecting on the year that we just had, and what a great year it's been for us as, astronauts aboard the expedition 74 and previously expedition 73.

It's also a little bit sad because we're we're not with our families at the time, but actually we are we're with our space family, so we're okay and we're looking forward to spending the holidays together. And not just together up here aboard the space station, but all of our friends at the mission control centers across the planet in Houston and Huntsville and Munich and Moscow and Scuba Japan. We're all going to celebrate the holidays together, and we're happy to share it with you. One of the special things about the holidays is traditions. And while we're all away from our traditions at home, we get to enjoy some new traditions on board.

So as you can see, we've got a little bit of decoration here. We've got, a little tree, and we've also hung some, some boots by the airlock with cheer. So, you know, we get to make some new traditions here, and that's, that's something that's really nice and special. And we're really glad to be able to do. I think for each of us here, this won't be the first time that we spend the holidays away from family for various reasons.

But exactly like Mike said, it's so special for us to share the holidays with each other here in orbit and with all of the teams taking care of us on the ground. So we also want to say a great thank you to the families who are lending these crew members to us, and a thank you to those in Mission Control who will spend their holidays taking care of us and to their families at home as well. It's incredibly special to be up here. I think we may be orbiting a little higher than Santa is flying, though. Yeah.

Holiday season is, also very important for Japanese people. Yeah. In Japan, amazingly, actually, we celebrate Christmas and also New Year. Also and, because of the everybody's support, actually, yeah. Away from, family members.

But actually we have good family just like family and crew members and also ground support. So we are very comfortable to live here. And in addition to that, probably I provide a lot of Japanese food for you guys. Yeah. To celebrate, holiday season.

So looking forward to it. Thank you. And so all from all of us aboard the International Space Station, to all of you, we would like to wish you the happiest of holiday season, the happiest of Christmas. Merry Christmas, and a happy, Happy New Year.

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