The five ISS astronauts and cosmonauts appeared with a Christmas tree in the background as they communicated with mission control, Russian television images showed.

Father Christmas, sitting in the control room alongside the head of the Russian space agency Roskosmos, told the crew: "The earth is thinking of you and loves you. Never forget you are our envoys in outer space."

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov passed on the crew's good wishes to children around the world, while his colleague Maxim Surayev's son and daughter watched from the control room along with a group of schoolchildren.

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