“The jurors have voted in respect of each of the suspects who have appeared in this Ultra High Court of Tudor, I, His Most Ultra Excellent Judge of All and Everything, am now in a position to announce the verdicts and pass sentence. Would all the defendants rise?”
“Jack Frost, the jury has found you to be a narcissist. It is clear to me that your attempt to frost everything in order to make it seem more attractive than it really is, is no more than a confidence trick. By making everything you touch sparkling and glittering, you seek to distract people from your cold-hearted disregard for the feelings and temperature of others. You seek to create an alluring Winter Wonderland when in reality you create icy and slippery traps for the unwary, a litany of broken hips and bruised backs. You create irritation in commuters as they are left with no option other than to scrape away your “graffiti” which is scrawled across their windscreens. You disrupt sporting calendars with your freezing of the earth, rendering lower league fixtures unplayable and disappointing those who wish to play and those who wish to watch. Yours is a callous disregard for the feelings of others. So long as you get to play with your white and silver paint kit, so long as you freeze locks, seal windows and turn pathways into slippery death traps you could not care less. You are a scourge on the fruit farmer, the horticulturist and the crop farmer. When they believe their crops and flowers can flourish, you appear with unseasonal regularity to dash their hopes, kill their produce and dent livelihoods. It is a feckless individual with only the most barren of frozen hearts who behaves in such a way. Your guilt is well-established. It is the sentence of this court that you be exiled to the resort of Playa De Las Americas on the island of Tenerife. There, not only will you be stripped of your powers and rendered impotent you will also have to endure the hordes which disrupt a once pleasant island with their insatiable appetite for sun, steak and chips and lager. The nearest you will come to your former life is to gaze longingly at the ice melting in an overly strong and syrupy cocktail. Take him down!”
“Ebenezer Scrooge, the jury has found you to be a narcissist. One might be inclined to give you some credit for the fact that you first demonstrated your true nature in a relentless display of greed and humbuggery. With no care other than for your bank balance, with a flagrant disregard for the pay and conditions of your employees and with a sneering hatred of all things jolly, you appeared as clear of thought and mind. However, you then, when recognising that judgment awaited you, embarked on a transparent and quite frankly, disingenuous attempt to deflect from your true self through some kind of redemption. Your claim to have experienced a Road to Damascus moment finds no favour with this court and indeed your flagrant volte face merely takes you on a road to nowhere instead. Welcome to the cul-de-sac of your culpability. With self-interest your guiding principle, you recognised damnation as a consequence of the apparitions that apparently came to you to impose on you the error of your ways. I must say that never have I heard such claptrap as that paraded before this court claiming that some spirits visited you and convinced you to mend your ways. Your modus operandi was both mendacious and misconceived. Your declaration of change is an empty one. Your announcement of having mended your ways has as much legitimacy to it as those who call into question the accuracy and authority of this presiding judge – in short, none. None whatsoever. Ebenezer Scrooge, I find you to be a mealy-mouthed, miserable, manipulative man who only utilises his extensive wealth for the purposes of bribery and coercion when it suits him. There is not an ounce of compassion and your blatant use of the Cratchit family as part of your facade of apparent goodwill and mended ways is as disgusting as it is futile. It is the sentence of this court that you will be stripped of your assets and an auction will be held on the earliest appointed day in January. The proceeds of this auction will be donated to the Empathic Trust For the Salvation of Gay Blind Whales. Furthermore, you will then be set to work in an honest, yet simple role so that you may learn the value of honest endeavour. You will wash the glasses in Bar Humbug for a term of not less than 30 years. Take him down!”
“Harry Lime, burglar and sponge on society, you have been found by this jury to be a narcissist. One can express no surprise in such an outcome. You, sir, are quite frankly an embarrassment to the Craft of Narcissism. You failed to acquire the well-heeled contents of Chez McAllister when all family members were absent, save for an 8 year old more interested in ice cream and Pepsi. To be outwitted by that young man bring shame on you. However, it is not only yourself you have let down. You have failed in your duties to the clown who, for a reason completely lost to me, looks up to you, the individual known as Marv. He will be cut adrift and who knows what fate awaits him, most likely nothing more than an occasional royalty cheque, as consequence of your dim-witted and obvious activity. You have claimed to be the victim in this charade, to that I say, no sir! No, you are not the victim. You had a victim and you let him succeed. You richly deserved having your head set on fire, having your hand burned on a heated door knob, slipping down icy steps and being shot in the groin with a BB gun. Your counsel has argued that this is punishment enough and anything more is to heap misery onto the. miserable. I reject that assertion. You are sentenced to be appointed as careers advisor to Macauley Culkin and to establish “What Went Wrong” and to gain understanding about his friendship with Michael Jackson. I see your counsel shake his head, no doubt recognising that this is an indeterminate sentence. Your counsel is correct, it is one without determination or conclusion and as such is entirely merited. Take him down.”
“Angel atop the Christmas Tree, the jury, after much and prolonged deliberation, found you guilty of being a narcissist. I knew as much form the beginning of this trial. You sit atop the tree imperious and in silent judgment. Your portray yourself as holier than thou, deserving of your lofty perch and a bastion of goodness. I see through this, as has the jury. For all of your golden adornments, silvery glitter and lacy airiness, you are tissue-thin in your concern for others. Year on year you exhibit your latent sense of entitlement to be the only one to sit atop the tree. You never speak, you never issue any thanks or gratitude to those who place you there and instead you continue to act with the self-centred expectation of one who believes that the world owes her a living. It does not. You, miss, are but paper and frippery and your false tower will now be torn down. It is the sentence of this court that you never be returned to your place atop the Christmas Tree. Your arrogance tells me that you will believe that you were tired of such a role and that you are pleased to be liberated from sitting there year on year, basking in the light shed by others, namely the tree lights and candles, but that is yet another lie to join the many others you have created to ensure your empty supremacy over the rest of the denizens of the Christmas tree. Henceforth, your role will be taken in perpetuity by The Star and you will be cast down, forced to hang from the lowest branch of the Christmas Tree. From there, you will be made to look upwards and see the place you once occupied and observe The Star and its light-giving qualities. You shall have your own personal prison at the base of the Christmas Tree, perched even below that antique bauble that Aunt Maud provided and has to be hung for fear of offending the old maid. Take her down!”
“John McClane, the jury has found you to be a normal. You are a maverick and one which continues to ensure that the various good folk of the United States are able to enjoy their Christmases relatively unscathed. You are to be commended for your brand of personal vigilantism. It is the sentence of this court that a bursary be made available from funds held to enable you to buy a new pair of shoes and a new outfit each Christmas to avoid wearing the same slacks and white vest. May you continue to mock and defeat terrorists and this time, look dapper doing so. You leave this court with your reputation intact. You may stand down.”
“Finally, Santa Claus. Despite compelling evidence to the contrary, you have been found by this jury to be an empath. Before I pass sentence on you, I shall make something very clear, very clear indeed. This court takes a very dim view of bribery of its jurors and the failure to gift this Honourable and Supreme Judge. Should this court learn that you, Mr Claus, has engaged in bribery of the jurors with gifts from your bulging sack, you and they will be brought before this court and dealt with in the harshest terms. As it stands, you have been found to be an empath and therefore it is the sentence of this court to preserve the status quo. You may stand down and attend to your usual business, I understand that at this time you are rather busy, so rather than stand there “ho ho Ho-ing” to your supporters and those strange small folk, oh they are your workers are they, how odd, that you leave this place and get on with it!
This court is now adjourned. Bring me a minion!”