Names and faces

■ A record 39 holiday songs dominated this week’s Billboard Hot 100 chart, including nine holiday tunes in the Top 10. Mariah Carey’s ubiquitous hit, “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” leads the pack at No. 1 — marking the tune’s fifth time at the top spot. Carey’s original holiday classic, released in 1994, reached the No. 1 spot last year 25 years after its release. Each holiday season, Carey’s song and other Christmas tunes begin to climb the Billboard charts as their popularity resurfaces through streaming, radio play and even digital sales. Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is No. 2 on this week’s Hot 100 chart, followed by Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock;” Burl Ives’ “A Holly Jolly Christmas;” and Andy Williams’ “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Jose Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad,” which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year with an all-star remix featuring Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jason Mraz and others, is No. 6. The only nonholiday song in this week’s Top 10 is 24kGoldn and Iann Dior’s “Mood,” which is currently No. 7. Other holiday songs in the Top 10 include Dean Martin’s “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow” at No. 8, followed by Wham!’s “Last Christmas” and Chuck Berry’s “Run Run Rudolph.”

■ Some of the ashes of James Doohan, the actor who portrayed the original “Star Trek” character Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, have been secretly interred for a dozen years on the International Space Station. Doohan died in July 2005 at age 85. Portions of the actor’s ashes had previously been launched into space officially a couple of other times, according to The Verge. However, citizen astronaut and entrepreneur Richard Garriott, who was one of the first private citizens to fly to space, smuggled Doohan’s ashes during a 12-day mission in 2008, he told The Times of London. The plot was conceived by son Chris Doohan. “My dad had three passions: space, science and trains,” Chris Doohan told The Times. “He always wanted to go into space.” He enlisted Garriott, a video game developer who traveled to the ISS on a self-funded, visit via Russia’s Soyuz TMA-13 mission. Garriott sprinkled ashes onto and then laminated photos of Doohan, which he then took onboard, he said. One of the cards he slipped behind the cladding on the floor of the Columbus module, another he jettisoned into space, and a third he brought back to Chris Doohan, where it hangs framed on a wall. “It was completely clandestine,” Garriott told the Times. “His family were very pleased that the ashes made it up there but we were all disappointed we didn’t get to talk about it publicly for so long. Now enough time has passed that we can.”

Doohan

Carey