How I Met Your Mother: Every Christmas Episode

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There were several How I Met Your Mother Christmas episodes over the course of nine seasons, with the holiday interwoven into some of the show’s most memorable storylines. Despite having their own extended families, the group made an effort to spend time together when it counted the most, including major holidays like Christmas. Ted, Marshall, and Lily were especially excited to celebrate Christmas when they lived together. While expectations weren’t always met, the group sure knew how to build unforgettable moments.

Unlike some sitcoms that host a December holiday special every year, How I Met Your Mother started with a pattern that featured a Christmas episode every other season. That changed in season 6, beginning three years of seasons with consecutive Christmas-set episodes. While every Christmas special presented a heartwarming narrative, season 6’s Christmas episode also started the trend of diving deeper into the lives of the characters by unveiling more serious storylines. The best How I Met Your Mother Christmas episodes exemplify why the show was so successful, with many standing out even without the festive themes.

1. How Lily Stole Christmas

How I Met Your Mother’s first Christmas-themed episode comes in the show’s second season. Ted is excited to spend the holidays with his friends while Lily is hard at work at making the apartment into a “Winter Wonderland.” While decorating, she finds an old answering machine that contains messages from when she and Marshall were broken up. On them, Ted can be heard calling her awful names, but for the sake of the series, they refer to her as a “grinch.”

When Ted tries to apologize to Lily, he finds that she took all the Christmas decorations out of the apartment (one of several times Lily used Aldrin Justice). Ted attempts to make amends before he decides to spend Christmas with his religious cousin in Staten Island. Marshall’s kind gesture towards Lily then convinces her that friends are just as important as family.

2. Little Minnesota

Season 4’s “Little Minnesota” centers on the fact that Robin is experiencing homesickness since she’s not in Canada for the holiday season. To make her feel better, Marshall offers to bring her to the Walleye Saloon, a Minnesota-themed bar that he visits when he misses his hometown. Marshall then realizes that she needs something more personal so they find a Canadian bar called the Hoser Hut.

Meanwhile in this How I Met Your Mother Christmas episode, Ted’s sister, Heather, comes to New York City and claims she will soon be moving there. Ted worries that Barney will try to seduce her, especially since he has a history of creating inappropriate Christmas songs about her. Even though Heather and Barney try to mess with Ted, her visit encourages him to become closer to his real family.

3. False Positive

The season 6 How I Met Your Mother Christmas episode “False Positive” begins with Ted waiting for his friends outside of a movie theater that is showing It’s A Wonderful Life. The episode then follows the events over a two-day period in which Lily thought she was pregnant, only to find it was a false positive. During the initial news, Robin and Barney become unhappy with their life decisions.

When Lily reveals that she isn’t expecting, Robin lets go of the notion that she’s an underachiever while Barney returns to his lavish spending habits. It then becomes Ted’s job to snap everyone back into reality, telling Marshall and Lily that they are ready for a baby, encouraging Robin to go after her dream job, and convincing Barney not to waste his money. After a brief meltdown, Ted goes into the theater to enjoy the holiday movie alone.

4. Symphony Of Illumination

Season 7’s “Symphony of Illumination” serves as another holiday-centric How I Met Your Mother Christmas episode, but it also features a touching storyline involving Robin. After a pregnancy scare, Robin learns that she can’t have children, which is a situation she struggles to process. Though she doesn’t initially tell her friends the truth, they recognize that something is wrong.
Ted goes out of his way to cheer her up by creating a massive Christmas light display at the apartment. Meanwhile, Marshall vows to have the best decorations in his Long Island neighborhood. He tries to enlist a teenage neighbor to help, but the plan backfires when the kid strands him on the roof to throw a party in Marshall and Lily’s house.

5. The Over-Correction

“The Over-Correction” begins a specific storyline that occurs in a span of three episode over the Christmas season. Robin becomes increasingly frustrated when Barney starts dating Patrice, a co-worker that she despises (though later is a bridesmaid at Robin and Barney’s wedding). As a way to reveal Barney’s womanizing nature, Robin breaks into his apartment to find a copy of the Playbook.
When she’s forced to hide in the closet, she tries to get Ted to help. After Barney invites Patrice over to help decorate his apartment for Christmas, both Robin and Ted are forced to hide, where they find Lily in another closet. Throughout the episode, Ted tries to reclaim the items that his friends stole from him like Ted’s red cowboy boots, a mini-cooler, and various Christmas decorations.

6. The Final Page

In part one of “The Final Page” Christmas special, Robin makes plans to have Patrice fired from World Wide News. Barney previously came clean about the Playbook, which only seems to strengthen his relationship with Patrice. After he’s jinxed by Marshall, Barney has no choice but to remain silent for much of the episode. To break the jinx, he shows Ted the engagement ring that he intends to give Patrice. Lily and Marshall, meanwhile, run into a former acquaintance from college that was once obsessed with their friendship.

In part two of this multi-installment How I Met Your Mother Christmas episode, Lily and Marshall prepare to have a night out without Baby Marvin by attending the gala for the new GNB building, which Ted designed. Seeing as Barney intends to propose to Patrice that same night, Ted invites Robin to the gala as his date, but he fails to keep Barney’s proposal a secret. Robin can’t help herself from showing up to Barney’s planned proposal atop the World Wide News building.

On the roof, Robin finds “The Robin,” the final page of Barney’s Playbook, which reveals that the entire relationship with Patrice and surrounding events is a plan for Barney to win Robin back. In the midst of the city lights and Christmas decorations, Barney takes a chance on the love of his life, making for one unforgettable How I Met Your Mother moment.
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