- Thanksgiving with Marshall's family is stressful when Lily thinks she might be pregnant. Robin, Barney, and Ted spend the holiday volunteering.
- It's Thanksgiving and while Lily and Marshall visit his family in Minnesota, Robin and Ted want to volunteer at a homeless shelter kitchen. Surprisingly, Robin and Ted meet Barney at the kitchen, who has been doing volunteer work for the past few years. At the kitchen, Ted meets Amanda, who seems to be a quite nice girl until everything turns out to be different. Lily has some issues with Marshall's family and is unsure about how her future with Marshall will look like.—123
- It's Thanksgiving 2005. Marshall is looking forward to going back to his hometown of St. Cloud, Minnesota to spend the holidays with his family, who he hasn't seen in close to a year. Lily, on the other hand, isn't quite looking forward to accompanying him. It's not that Lily doesn't like Marshall's family, but a Midwest lifestyle is not what Lily is used to. A specific physical attribute of the Eriksen clan is also starting to play on Lily's mind, especially as she thinks she may be pregnant. Meanwhile, Ted wants to see a true smile of thanks this holiday, and as such decides to volunteer at a shelter for Thanksgiving dinner. Since Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving a month and a half earlier, Robin, who has nothing else to do, accompanies Ted. At the shelter, they are surprised to find Barney volunteering there, he who is a regular fixture and is considered the ultimate volunteer, that is until Ted and Robin find out why he's been doing this volunteer work. The volunteer experience isn't quite what Ted was hoping, so it isn't until the end of the night when Barney asks for a unusual favor to place that smile of thanks on a needy person's face that Ted sort of gets what he was hoping.—Huggo
- Barney has invented a new Thanksgiving drink called the Thankstini: Cranberry juice, potato vodka & bouillon cube. Tastes like a turkey dinner. Robin reveals she is Canadian and they celebrate thanksgiving in October. Barney's tradition is thanksgiving dinner at a strip club: the lusty leopard.
It's Thanksgiving time, and Marshall and Lily visit Marshall's family in St. Cloud, Minnesota (Brothers Marcus & Marvin, Mother Judy & Father. 2 sister-in-laws). Marshall plays a game of "bask-ice-ball" (a no-rules, brawling combination of basketball and ice hockey that the Eriksen family invented) with his father and elder brothers while Lily helps his sister-in-law and mother in the kitchen.
The talk turns to babies, and Mrs. Eriksen reveals that her first-born son was almost 15 pounds at birth ("The doctor thought he was twins!"); this frightens Lily, who is dwarfed not only by Marshall but his entire family (at 6'4", Marshall is the shortest of his brothers), and she dreads the idea of trying to give birth to a baby that size. At that point, Lily was already 5 days late in her monthly cycle, so the thought of a giant baby Eriksen growing inside of her, terrified her.
At dinner, Lily sees a 3 month old baby of one of the brothers and the baby is already as big as a toddler. And the wife is already pregnant with the next. Lily gets into an argument with Marshall and the Eriksens when she reveals she isn't going to change her surname after the wedding and doesn't want to raise their kids in Minnesota. Increasingly worked up, she drives off to a convenience store, where she is arrested for public urination.
Marshall goes to the station, and finds out Lily was using a home pregnancy test. Lily tells him of her concerns about raising a family of "mayonnaise-guzzling giants in Minnesota", but Marshall, faced with the very real possibility of having a child, assures her that they are not going to settle down in Minnesota (as Bask-ice-ball is really dangerous), and alleviates Lily's fears. Finally, Marshall and Lily discover that Lily isn't pregnant; they return to the Eriksen home, much relieved, and the Thanksgiving dinner concludes amicably.
Meanwhile, Robin and Ted have no plans for Thanksgiving, and decide to help out at a soup kitchen. When they arrive, they are shocked to find Barney volunteering there already (he considers himself as the Angelina Joli of incredibly hot guys), and that he is highly regarded as one of the best volunteers on staff. The organizer, Kendall, tells Ted and Robin that they have enough volunteers, but after being vouched for by Barney, they are allowed to help. Soon after, they find out that not all the food received as donations to the soup kitchen is actually distributed to the needy; many volunteers take the better, more expensive donations for themselves.
Ted, seeing that this is selfish, begins to distribute rare food items to the needy. Ted, Robin, and Barney are kicked out, and Barney (who was volunteer of the year) becomes upset with Ted because he has to complete his remaining hours hauling trash; it turns out that Barney volunteered there as mandatory community service after being arrested for public urination on the judge's church.
To make it up to him, Ted and Robin agree to go to the strip club, The Lusty Leopard, with Barney, and Ted pays for a homeless man to get a lap dance, which he realizes is the one act of charity he performed on Thanksgiving. Another stripper named Tracy compliments Ted on his generosity, and Future Ted tells his kids "And that's the story of how I met your mother", shocking them before revealing, to their relief, that he is joking.
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