Stan's obsession with finding the perfect Christmas tree leads to him bringing his family up into the mountains on Christmas Eve. When he finds the perfect tree, he dies and goes to Purgatory where he tries to get a second chance at life.
Tropes:
- All Germans Are Nazis: After fixing the train set, Klaus says that his grandfather was a conductor in Auschwitz. The family makes a horrified gasp, to which he says he ran the kiddie train at the zoo.Klaus: You know, it's a big town! There's other stuff there!
- Artistic License – Religion: Played for Laughs. Upon seeing Michelle and how inept she is, Stan wants a new lawyer, asking where "Jewish heaven" is. The existence of Heaven is a hotly contested subject in Judaism, with reincarnation also being held as valid by many rabbis. Of course, Stan is an idiot whose right-wing Christian beliefs clearly color his view of other faiths.
- Deus ex Machina: God sends Stan back to Earth right before he took the family out to look for a tree.
- Didn't See That Coming: After dying, Stan finds himself in an ice cream parlor. The host tells him that they're out of vanilla, Stan's favorite flavor, then says they do have it because it makes the recently deceased happy when they have their favorite flavor and softens the blow that they're dead. Then he finds that they really are out of vanilla, something that's never happened before.
- Everyone Has Standards: Michelle's clearly not above fabricating or misrepresenting evidence to make Stan seem like he deserves a second chance at living, but she still gives him a disgusted Death Glare after seeing the way he treated Francine during her pregnancy with Hayley.
- Hope Spot: Michelle brings up the one time that Stan was completely selfless, in which Steve convinced him to help a homeless man and he did so by giving him a kidney. This seems to clear Stan for a second chance, only for Scott to play the rest of the clip and show that it was really a dream that Stan was having.
- Immortal Breaker: "Heaven Guns," which are capable of killing angels. One angel even wonders why they exist at all in the afterlife. It's unclear if these would actually work on God as he's clearly not intimidated when Stan threatens him, but God does sound legitimately pissed later:God (now holding the Heaven Gun to Stan's forehead): Don't you EVER PULL A GUN ON ME AGAIN!
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Stan claims that Francine has another month before she delivers, even after her OBGYN says she's due any day now.
- "Lion King" Lift: Hayley is delivered by a mandrill in Africa and then lifted up by it.
- Oh, Crap!: Stan fails in his trial to get a second chance and wonders how his family will get by without him. Michelle attempts to comfort him by saying they'll all be dead in about twenty minutes, because they're in the car in the middle of a snow storm and Stan took the keys with him.
- The Perfectionist: Despite the extensive efforts made by the family, Stan wants Christmas to be absolutely perfect down to the smallest detail and insists their work is all wrong.
- Purgatory and Limbo: Where Stan ends up after he's crushed by a tree.
- Reset Button: When God shoots Stan with a Heaven Gun, he finds himself back at home the moment he walked through the door. Having learned his lesson, he says that everything is perfect.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Michelle gets taken hostage by Stan after he's denied a second chance, but she ends up siding with him for the sake of saving his family. And also because it means she gets to go inside God's house and drink His booze.
- Shout-Out:
- In a reference to The Great Escape, Michelle and Stan try to bluff their way past St. Peter by claiming Stan is a recently deceased German man. Then Stan says "thank you" in English.Stan: I mean, "German for thank you." Danke something.
- Both Jim Henson and Kermit the Frog were banished to the Phantom Zone from Superman: The Movie for attempting to sneak into Heaven.
- After Stan puts down the gun and walks away, God says "so shines a good deed in a weary world."
- In a reference to The Great Escape, Michelle and Stan try to bluff their way past St. Peter by claiming Stan is a recently deceased German man. Then Stan says "thank you" in English.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Stan thinks that he knows more than God Himself.God: Stan, you are holding a gun to God's head. I mean, I can't think of a metaphor that's better than this.
- Smug Snake: Scott, the prosecutor in Stan's trial for a second chance.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Stan also convinces God to give Michelle her wings after she helps him try to save his family from dying.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: After Hayley is delivered by a mandrill, Stan's only response is to ask Francine if she made coffee.
