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Christmas comes but once a year. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
Christmas comes but once a year, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
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English
Etymology
Apparently coined by the English poet Thomas Tusser (c. 1524 – 1580): see the 1580 quotation.
Proverb
Christmas comes but once a year
- Used to emphasize the annual distinctiveness of Christmas, especially in contexts where either the special joys or tribulations of the holiday are described.
1580, Thomas Tusser, “The Fermers Dailie Diet”, in Fiue Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie: , London: Henrie Denham , →OCLC, stanza 5:At Christmas play and make good cheere, / For Christmas comes but once a yeere.
1623, M. N. [pseudonym; William Camden], “Certaine Prouerbes, Poemes or Poesies, Epigrammes, Rhythmes, and Epitaphs of the English Nation in Former Times, and Some of This Present Age”, in Remaines, Concerning Britaine: , 3rd edition, London: Nicholas Okes, for Simon Waterson, , →OCLC, page 267:Chriſtmaſſe commeth but once a yeere.
1854, Charles Dickens, “The Seven Poor Travellers. Chapter I. In the Old City of Rochester.”, in Christmas Stories (The Works of Charles Dickens; XV), de luxe edition, London: Chapman and Hall, published 1881, →OCLC, page 5:I urged to the good lady that this was Christmas-eve; that Christmas comes but once a year,—which is unhappily too true, for when it begins to stay with us the whole year round we shall make this earth a very different place; […]
1901, Lucy Maud Montgomery, “A Christmas Mistake”, in Short Stories: 1896—1901:"Christmas comes but once a year, / And then Mother wishes it wasn't here."