“I would say that poetry for most people is like the Christmas tree that is kept in the attic and is taken down in its appropriate season.”

Il est de sel attique assaisonné partout.
Act III, sc. ii
Les Femmes Savantes (1672)

"How Awful When Poetry Ages As It Is Read"
I've Learned Some Things (2008)

Variant: Christmas isn't a season. It's a feeling.

Statement made as the then-General Secretary of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PKU), on Iraqi opposition leaders — reported in George D. Moffett III (September 20, 1990) "Iraqi Exiles Make a Try at Unity - Saddam's isolation spurs varied opponents to shelve differences and plot his overthrow", Christian Science Monitor, p. 4.

The Wild Flag (1943)
Context: This is the dream we had, asleep in our chair, thinking of Christmas in the lands of fir tree and pine, Christmas in lands of palm tree and vine, and of how the one great sky does for all places and all people.
After the third great war was over (this was a curious dream), there was no more than a handful of people left alive, and the earth was in ruins and the ruins were horrible to behold. The people, the survivors, decided to meet to talk over their problem and to make a lasting peace, which is the customary thing to make after a long and exhausting war. There were eighty-three countries, and each country sent a delegate to the convention. One English-man came, one Peruvian, one Ethiopian, one Frenchman, one Japanese, and so on, until every country was represented.

"River" from Blue
Songs