10 Best How I Met Your Mother Holiday Episodes

Come on—what else could we give the top spot to?

Well, maybe Slapsgiving 2, this episode’s equally hysterical sequel, but that felt like an exercise in redundancy, so the two are being amalgamated together to receive this honour.

One of the show’s funniest and tightest half hours, this episode provides a brilliant and inspired pay off for the long running Barney vs Marshall slap bet plot, as well as featuring some the series’ funniest background bits throughout its increasingly tense and hilarious runtime. The follow-up does an admirable job of revisiting this territory without leaving the joke too over-exhausted, but few episodes can reach the Platonic ideal of sitcom success like the original Slapsgiving, and for that it’s managed to net the top spot—well, for that and for the perfect comic timing of that long-awaited titular slap and, of course, its attendant elaborate song and dance routine courtesy of the triumphant Marshall.