How Lily Stole Christmas

Infobox Television episode
Title = How Lily Stole Christmas
Series = How I Met Your Mother
Season = 2
Episode = 11
Airdate = December 11, 2006
Production = 2ALH11
Writer = Brenda Hsueh
Director = Pamela Fryman
Guests = Carlease Burke (WPD Worker), Marcus Folmar (WPD Driver), Harry Groener (Clint), Michael Gross (Mr Mosby), Moon Unit Zappa (Stacy)
Episode list =List of How I Met Your Mother episodes
Prev = Single Stamina
Next = First Time in New York

"How Lily Stole Christmas" is the 11^th episode in the second season of the television series "How I Met Your Mother". It originally aired on December 11, 2006.

Plot

Ted has decided to spend Christmas in New York this year because he doesn't want to go with his mother and her new boyfriend, his father and his new brewery, or his overly religious cousin in Staten Island. While Lily decorates their apartment, Marshall goes to the law library to finish one last paper of the semester. He refuses to look at the decorations because the winter wonderland will be his reward for finishing the paper. After he leaves, Lily finds the old answering machine that was unplugged after Lily and Marshall broke up. Lily plays messages that are still on it, and hears a message from Ted to Marshall telling him to get over Lily. In this message, Ted calls Lily a "very, very bad word" which is substituted on-air with "grinch."

Lily asks why Ted called her that word, and Ted reveals that he was trying to get Marshall to stop idolizing Lily even after they had split during the summer, and told Marshall that if he did not stop idolizing Lily, he would never get over her. He asks Marshall to tell him one bad thing about Lily. Before long, Marshall is walking around constantly saying derogatory things about Lily. Ted tells Lily that he was just trying to help Marshall move on, and he refuses to apologize to Lily because she was kind of a "grinch" that summer.

At the bar, Ted is telling Robin and Barney about what happened, and realizes that he has to apologize to Lily. Ted brings a beer back up to the apartment to offer as an apology. However, when he opens to door, he finds that Lily has taken all the decorations to her own crappy apartment. Ted wants to make sure that the winter wonderland will be there when Marshall gets back from the library. and so he goes to Lily's apartment (he fools her into thinking he's the pizza delivery guy) and begs her to come home. Ted says he's sorry that he called her the bad word, and Lily accuses him of fake apologizing. Lily asks Ted why he's still mad at her, and he says that she never apologized to him for leaving. Ted yells at Lily and then her power goes off and Lily says that Ted pissed off the "big man up stairs" which is her super that lives above her. He then tells Lily that she can take the decorations back to his and Marshall's apartment because he's going to visit his cousin's family in Staten Island. Having blown off his paper, Marshall comes back home and finds the winter wonderland intact, not knowing what happened earlier in the day.

Marshall has brought a package with him, a present for Lily. He tells the story of how he went to the post office to find out why it hadn't come in when it was supposed to. The lady tells him that the package is already on the truck headed to Poughkeepsie. Marshall runs the truck down and asks if he can have the package back. The driver says sure, but he's running behind on his route so Marshall has to ride along. Marshall gets his package, but when the driver tells him that he won't be able to deliver all the packages in time for Christmas he decides to help. Lily opens the package, and finds that its an Easy Bake Oven. Lily exclaims that she's always wanted one, but she never told Marshall that, so how could he know? Marshall tells Lily the gift was Ted's idea; Ted had told Marshall about how, in college, Lily told him all she wanted when she was a kid was an Easy Bake Oven but her feminist mother gave her a Lego set instead. Marshall asks where Ted is and Lily tells him Staten Island.

Out at his cousin's house, Ted is having a miserable time. Lily, Robin, Marshall and Barney arrive with an apology beer for Ted. Ted tells his cousin that it's carolers to keep her from coming to the door. While the other three sing, Lily says she's sick of apologizing and the two agree to skip straight to the forgiveness. Ted takes off after Lily accidentally teaches his cousin's children the bad word.

Music

* Clarence Carter - "Backdoor Santa"
* "Silent Night"

Trivia

* Guest star Harry Groener previously worked with Alyson Hannigan on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Groener is the fourth actor from the Buffyverse series to guest star on the show.
* Both of the actors who portray Ted Mosby -- Josh Radnor and Bob Saget -- are Jewish, however this episode suggests that Ted is not.
* Following much speculation from fans as to what Ted actually called Lily, as the traditional guess would've been bitch. Barney's Blog recently added a 'Motherspeak' section pointing it out as a four-letter-word, thus narrowing down the possible expletives, most likely to cunt.

Cultural references

* The title of the episode alludes to the Dr. Seuss book "How the Grinch Stole Christmas".
* When Ted calls Lily "a grinch," the frame freezes and Older Ted narrates that he "didn't say 'grinch.'" This bit of dialogue refers to "A Christmas Story", in which the young, on-screen Ralphie says "Oh, fudge" and the adult narrator Ralphie says, "I didn't say 'fudge.'" Right after Lily hears the answering machine and looks at Ted, the older Ted, as narrator, says the original line.
* Barney is wearing a Cornell University Big Red t-shirt while Robin takes care of him.
* Ted references the bible quote in Pulp Fiction
* When the friends come to rescue Ted from his family on Staten Island, he says, "I'll get it" and runs quickly to the door. Ted's cousin Stacey asks, "Who is it?" and he is told to say "It's carol singers." Then Barney, Marshall, and Robin sing "Silent Night" while Lily and Ted make amends. This scene references Love Actually in the scene where Mark (Andrew Lincoln) comes to Juliet's (Keira Knightley) door to say he loves her using cue cards, following the aforementioned pattern.
*"Weed" was mentioned in this episode, while in 3rd season the future Ted seem reluctant to tell his kids that, and weed was referred to as "sandwich".

External links

* " [http://www.tv.com/how-i-met-your-mother/how-lily-stole-christmas/episode/930783/summary.html How Lily Stole Christmas] " at TV.com
* " [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0904645/ How Lily Stole Christmas] " at the Internet Movie Database