When NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn embarked on his mission to the International Space Station last December, he could only take a few personal items. He stashed photos, stuffed animals from his kids and a book of puzzles he'd never use.

Marshburn would also miss Christmas that year, so his family packed a stocking filled with small gifts, including John Grisham's Skipping Christmas, an ironic nod from his sister.

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Astronauts are each allowed to bring 3.3 pounds worth of belongings to the ISS, most of which usually comes back with them to Earth. However, space agencies always leave some room for quirky, cultural items. Patches, flags and state pins often take up the majority of that space, but sometimes unexpected items pop up on the Official Flight Kit manifesto.

Here are a few curious things that have surprised fresh arrivals on the space station.

Fruitcake

Commander Chris Hadfield was floating about the ISS in March when he came across something strange in the supply room.

"Hey, Tom, look at this!" Hadfield called. Marshburn glided over to find Hadfield holding a fruitcake about the size of a trash can lid. The two laughed and took a giant bite.

"We have a place for bonus food, but we didn't ask for that, who would ever ask for that?" Marshburn told Mashable. "We tried it, and it was great. The flavor and texture was just fantastic. We ate that for about a week."

Guitar, Ukulele and an Electric Piano

If you had the talent, you could form your own band on the space station. Hadfield became a web celebrity for playing the guitar on <http://www.mashable.com/category/youtube">YouTube. He even made the first music video from space, in which he floats around while strumming David Bowie's "Space Oddity."

While Hadfield had the slow hand on that mission, Marshburn said the ukulele and electric piano, which had been aboard the station for a decade, remained untouched during his time there. However, photographic evidence shows that at least a few astronauts have tickled those keys and frets.

Left: Carl Walz performs for a group of astronauts on board the ISS. Right: ISS science officer Ed Lu — another astronaut musician — performs for space station commander Yuri Malenchenko in the foreground.

We're still holding out for a three-piece rendition of "She Blinded Me With Science."

Legos

Some astronauts do Sudoku in their free time, but Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa opted for more meta activity. The flight engineer brought a set of Legos to space in 2012 to build a replica of the ISS ... while on the space station.

Expedition 34 crew members pictured clockwise (from top right): NASA astronaut Kevin Ford, commander; Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, Russian cosmonauts Evgeny Tarelkin and Roman Romanenko, NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy. The floating pieces in zero gravity made the intricate model even harder to assemble, but Furukawa still managed to complete the ISS and two other space-related models of the Mars rovers and Hubble Space Telescope.

A Box of Christmas Decorations

Isolation can creep up on an astronaut, especially around the holidays. So, a few cosmonauts from the Russian Federal Space Agency put together a box of Christmas decorations to make the space station feel more like home.

"It is important to celebrate holidays, for crew unity and to refresh the body," Marshburn said. The bag of holiday supplies included plastic strings, Santa hats and a Christmas tree just more than one foot high.

Six-Book Library

Along with the Grisham novel, Marshburn also read Collapse by Jared Diamond and started a book by Dave Barry. He left all the books to build up the space station's "library," which is actually just an old box floating in a corner of the cargo area.

At Marshburn's last count, there were only six books, but there's a reason for that. While Marshburn describes himself as an "avid reader," he found that he — along with everyone else on board — had little time for it. And when he did, his brain was exhausted from working on complicated experiments and other activities to maintain the space station.

"I got a book of puzzles and brainteasers," Marshburn said. "But it turns out that life in space is all brainteasers."

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All images courtesy of NASA