The Corp was given time off over Christmas to see family and relax, if you wanted to you could stay back which only few did including Armin, Mikasa and Eren. Annie went outside the walls to see her father after a few years away from him on her mission. Eren and Mikasa were the only family that each other had so they didn't see any reason to not still be in service, Armin didn't mind not seeing anyone during this time, Historia also decided to stay behind.

Eren was going through his normal routine not really caring about the holiday, most in the corp had agreed to celebrate Christmas later as everyone wanted to celebrate it together. The higher ups gave the volunteers a lesser schedule not giving them assigned tasks like usual but Eren still went through the day as if the normal schedule was still in play. He went outside for what would be hand to hand combat, Eren was the only one out here, he didn't have anyone to train with so he took a bag from a storage closet and tied it to a tree to start kicking it. Annie had told him that she was trained like this by her father, the way she described it made him think her father was an awful person but he thought she and most would probably think that about Erens father. As Eren kicked the bag over and over he realised that he was missing everyone, here he was alone doing something he had all the right in the world to slack off from to remind him of someone he liked.

Annie came to her old house in the woods , seeing the trees with the training bags on them made her feel strange, she entered her house to see her father sitting in a chair making tea "Annie?" her father says surprised she was here "I was given some time off since it's Christmas" she explains "how is the mission going?" he asked "its still in progress" she says meekly. Annie goes outside, she spent most of her time in her youth outside beating the bags on the trees upon her fathers demands, even though she hated the intense training he gave her she realised it helped her in the long run, if not she may have ended up like Christa as the fragile little girl she joked about. Instead of using the training bags she took her martial arts stance beating on the air as if she was doing her training with Eren. Even though she was alone she could see Eren running at her with a small wooden stake. Her father saw her through a window, he wasn't sure why she was pretending to fight someone instead of using the bags. Annie was happy doing this, the familiarity of what she was doing was calming, she saw Eren coming towards her, she put her arm out and swept his legs putting the stake to his throat. while Eren wasn't really there she could see him as if he was, this brought a small smile to her face.

A few days later everyone had come back to the corps, there wasn't a titan attack at all when they were given a break and the group kept there promise and started to put up a Christmas tree with minimal decorations a few pieces on tinsel and baubles, a reef for a door and a star for the top of the tree. Annie had the star but was to short to reach the top of the tree. "need a lift?" Eren asked sarcastically "yes" Annie says looking down, Eren went behind Annie and put his head under her legs and raised himself so Annie was sitting on his shoulders, some of their friends found this funny while a few were jealous. Eren walked closer to the tree, Annie puts the star on the top of the tree and Eren steps back so the both of them could look at it "looks good" Annie says "yeah" Eren says looking at the tree then up at Annie.