The Air Force Has Parachuted Christmas Gifts Since 1952

Every December, Air Force cargo planes fly low over some of the most remote islands in the Pacific and push parachuted boxes out of the back. The tradition is called Operation Christmas Drop, and it started with one crew that answered a wave.

A Wave From Below

The story goes back to the Christmas season of 1952. A US Air Force B-29 crew flying south of Guam spotted islanders waving up at them from below.

Air Force accounts name the island as Kapingamarangi, an atoll in what is now the Federated States of Micronesia, about 3,500 miles southwest of Hawaii.

The crew gathered items they had on the plane, packed them into a container with a parachute attached and dropped it as they circled again, as an act of goodwill. That single drop started the tradition.

Some histories date the first drop to 1951, but the Air Force counts its years from 1952.

Boxes Packed on Guam

The modern drop is run out of Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. A private group, also called Operation Christmas Drop, raises the money through events such as golf tournaments and sponsored runs, and local businesses sponsor individual boxes.

Airmen and members of the Guam community volunteer to sort the donations and pack the bundles.

Each box dropped from a C-130 can weigh nearly 400 pounds. The bundles float down on repurposed personnel parachutes, part of a low-cost, low-altitude airdrop method. Flying low helps the crews put each bundle where it is meant to land.

Training With a Purpose

For the crews, the drop is also real-world training in low-level flying, precision airdrops and planning.

Other air forces have joined over the years. Japan and Australia took part from 2015, South Korea first flew in 2021 and Canada joined in 2023.

The Air Force calls it the Department of War's longest-running humanitarian airlift.

The 74th Drop

The 2025 drop opened with a push ceremony at Andersen on December 8, when the first bundle was loaded into a C-130J Super Hercules.

Crews from the US and partner nations then airdropped 270 bundles. The Air Force says the bundles supply about 56,000 people across 59 islands each year, in the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and, for the first time in 2025, the Marshall Islands.

Inside were food, tools, fishing gear, school supplies and gifts.

"The Christmas Drop brings not only essential provisions and tools to the islands, but also hope that we are not alone, no matter how remote we may be," said Aren Palik, Vice President of the Federated States of Micronesia, who rode along on two of the drop flights.

A Holiday Movie, Too

In 2020, Netflix released a holiday romantic comedy named after the operation. About 90% of it was shot on Andersen, and real footage from the 2019 drop made it into the film. Netflix said its Hollywood crew volunteered on their days off to sort donations for the real drop.

The real operation keeps going. The 2025 drop was the 74th, and if the yearly run holds, December 2026 brings the 75th.