At Christmas play and make good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year

Thomas Tusser (c. 1524–1580) was an English poet best known for didactic verse on husbandry and household management. The couplet is commonly attributed to his long-running work often titled *Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry* (first issued in the mid-16th century and expanded in later editions). In that book Tusser mixes practical rural advice with seasonal customs and moral counsel; the lines appear in the section treating Christmas and winter housekeeping, reflecting Tudor-era expectations of hospitality, feasting, and communal recreation during the holiday period.

The couplet urges people to set aside ordinary labor and worries to celebrate while the opportunity is present. Its plain, proverbial phrasing treats Christmas as a brief, cyclical respite: because it “comes but once a year,” it deserves special cheer, play, and generosity. In Tusser’s broader didactic mode, the advice is not hedonistic so much as socially functional—festivity reinforces community bonds and household reputation, and it marks the calendar’s turning points. The lines helped crystallize a now-familiar justification for holiday merriment: scarcity of the occasion makes celebration appropriate.