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Eren was just at that age where he couldn’t quite do his Christmas shopping on his own, but at 10 years old, was too old for his Dad to buy his Christmas presents for him. In the past, Levi would buy and wrap the presents his children gave to each other and simply slapped their names on the tags. Levi had wanted to encouraging gift giving between them, but they had been too little to purchase their own gifts to give and terrible and picking them out as well. Now Eren was 10 and he wanted to do his own Christmas shopping.
Unfortunately, being 10, he had no money and no taste either.
Levi suggested Eren make something for Mikasa and Armin. That would be thoughtful and wouldn’t cost him any money. Then there came the problem of what to make, followed by the problem that Eren had no significant talents or skills when it came to crafting.
Luckily, his Papa was better with his hands and offered to help. But he suggested that Eren come up with the idea himself. Eren spent exactly four and a half days trying to figure out what to do, before his Papa told him that he could teach him how to knit and he could make hats for Armin and Mikasa out of their favorite colors.
That was when Eren had his own stroke of genius, at least for Mikasa’s gift (it took a little prodding, but eventually he got there).
Mikasa’s favorite color was red. This mostly had to do with the fact that her baby blanket- the blanket that formally belonged to Eren- was red. She’d carried that blanket around with her everywhere when she was younger, even when she became a little too old for such a thing to be socially acceptable. It was special to her; it gave her emotional strength. Even now, Eren knew that she kept his old blanket on her bed and slept with it every night. Eren was almost positive, that if she could she would still like to have it with her all the time.
Well, what if Eren provided something to act as the new baby blanket? Something that she could have with her all the time if she wanted.
Eren decided he was going to knit her a red scarf (and then probably just do a purple hat for Armin, because Armin liked purple and would look really cute with a purple hat with a puff on top).
“That’s a very thoughtful present,” Levi remarked, being impressed by his rowdy, 10 year old son. Just like when he was a toddler, Eren could be very sweet when the occasion called for it.
“You think she’ll like it?” Eren asked excited.
“She definitely will, especially if you make it yourself,” Levi answered.
Immediately, Eren stood up and grabbed Levi’s hand. “We need to go to the store and buy the yarn so you can start teaching me right now!”
To Eren’s disappointment, they didn’t start working on his Christmas presents that exact moment. But his Papa’s enthusiasm was never on par with his own, so Eren was a little used to it. According to Papa, Eren needed to be patient and wait until Mikasa and Armin weren’t around to start working on them, to keep the surprise. They waited until Mikasa was at dance and Armin was at violin lessons to go to the crafting store, where Levi helped Eren choose the right kind of yarn- something soft and deep in color- and the correct type of needles. Up until this point, Eren hadn’t even known his Papa could knit and he was quite impressed.
“When I was your age, I needed to learn how to do this sort of stuff myself,” Levi explained. “An old lady at a yarn shop taught me how to sew and knit, so I could make my own things.”
Eren listened with wide eyes as Levi vaguely told tales of his self-sufficiency. The misfortune of Levi’s early forced independence was lost on Eren, who thought it was amazing that his Papa had learned to do all those things at a young age. And now he was going to teach him!
The process of learning how to knit was much harder than Eren anticipated. It required a lot of sitting and careful control, which wasn’t something Eren was good at in the first place. He could never hold and maneuver the needles as well as his Papa could and he always found himself battling with the stupid thin pieces of yarn. He didn’t get it. His Papa could sit there and neat, tight stitches just appeared in massive rows, while he struggled and made sloppy, wobbly knits that often came undone.
Of course, Eren wasn’t the most patient student and Levi wasn’t the gentlest teacher.
“Eren, you’re making the stitches too loose. Unravel it and do it again.”
So Eren yanked the weaves free, readjusted his needles with a few dark mutterings and tried again, making the tiniest stitches he could.
“You’re pulling the yarn too tight, Eren. The tension is all off.”
So Eren loosened his grip and made stitches that weren’t as loose as the first but weren’t as tight as the ones he was just doing.
“Eren, look you dropped a stitch back here, you need to redo all of this or the whole scarf will unravel.”
So Eren made a small scream of frustration and threw the needles and partially created scarf on the ground and stormed off.
Eventually, with Levi doing a good portion of the knitting and over many sessions that ended in angry tears, Mikasa’s scarf was done. The pattern was simple, just a regular knit stitch done in long rows, but Eren had never been so proud of something in his whole life. It was easy to tell which parts had been done by Eren and which parts had been done by Levi. Eren’s sections had warbled edges and uneven stitches, while Levi’s looked so perfect and neat it could’ve been made by a machine. But that didn’t bother Eren at all.
Never before had Eren been so excited to give a gift. He was almost more excited to give Mikasa her scarf (and Armin’s hat, which was actually completely done by Levi, but that wasn’t the point) than he was receive his own gifts-and he was really hoping to get a new game for his hand held device too.
On Christmas morning, Eren went straight for the bag that he knew held Mikasa’s present and shoved it in her lap.
“Open mine first ‘Kasa!” he cried, nearly bouncing up and down beside her. He bit his lip in anticipation and watched her face as she fished through the tissue paper for the scarf. Immediately, he began explaining the gift, as soon as she pulled it from the bag. “It’s a scarf! I made it- well Papa helped- but it’s red like my baby blanket so you can always wear it and it’ll help you feel better when you need it!”
Mikasa stared at the material in her hands and gently ran her fingers over the stitches. Then slowly, she brought it up to her face and pressed it against her cheek. Eren watched as her eyes started blinking rapidly and she smiled gently.
“It’s soft,” was all she said before she pulled Eren into a tight hug and started crying.
Before he knew it, Eren was crying too- not that he would ever admit it!- and was squeezing her against him. This was the greatest he’d felt any Christmas morning and he hadn’t even opened any of his presents yet.