Apollo 8 spends the holiday around moon

Nine Planets
Precisely on time on Dec. 24, 1968, Mission Control lost contact with Apollo 8 and its crew of Frank Borman, James A. Lovell, and William A. Anders.
And everyone at NASA and onboard Apollo 8 was happy about that.
It meant that the spacecraft and crew were on a precise trajectory to swing behind the Moon, and if all went well, to fire the Service Module’s Service Propulsion System (SPS) engine to slow their velocity just enough to allow the Moon’s gravitational field to capture them.
With a successful Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) burn, they would become the first crewed spacecraft in lunar orbit, and Mission Control would regain the signal after 32 minutes and 37 seconds.