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human
[HIMYM] How long did it actually take for Ted to tell his story to his children?

Some spoilers here.

I was wondering, it looks like the story seen in all of the 9 seasons of the show is told in one evening. Some episodes show the children getting bored but in the final episode they still have the same outfit, age and all (which is impressive IRL because it seems that they actually knew the end of the series at its beginning. If you have more info about that I also take them. I guess they recorded numerous ends so that no one could know which one is the real one).
So, it obviously didn't take nine years for Ted to tell his story in the show. How long would the nine seasons be IRL?
gpt
Couldn't be more than a few hours. For comparison's sake you could time how long it'd take you to read the wiki entry on each episode's story, and it'd probably take you an hour or two to cover How Ted Met Their Mother.

More likely than not the kids expected a brief minute to 10 minute story, but with Ted getting side tracked and misremembering information, it stretches into a couple hours of needless tangents on Barney getting laid or Ted going on a boat with The Captain. Or hell even reminiscing about Lily and Marshall's housewarming party from like 5 different perspectives often going over the same events again and again.

But as you say with the kids staying in the same outfits, we can assume it isn't Ted telling them a bit at a time before leaving it for the day and picking it up again some other time. We also don't see them eating anything or drinking anything, meaning they're okay for food and water (likely having eaten recently). Given how at the end of the story in the evening Ted bails out to go get Robin back, we can assume the story started after lunch in the afternoon. This gives a maximum story time of maybe 6 hours for Ted to recount his story before heading to Robin's before it gets too late, but is pushing it a bit (try getting two young adults/teens to stay and listen for 6 straight hours). More likely after an early dinner (say 4 or 5pm) Ted tells the HIMYM story over two hours, his kids give him the go-ahead to plow their aunt, and he goes to Robin's for around 8pm.

TL;DR: Probably 1-2hrs, no more than 6.