"once in a year" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
It is generally used to express something occurring infrequently, usually once per year. For example, "We only get a vacation once in a year, so we always try to make the most of it."
It happens like, maybe, once in a year.
DAVID REMNICK: I am lucky if I go once in a year.
The cooked rolls are crisp, buttery and horribly moreish; I can see why in the Smith household these rolls are "a once in a year treat … with some crunchy pickled onions and celery".
"There was a perfect storm against him," said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who was recently tapped to succeed Mr. Corzine as head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee through the midterm elections of 2006, "an unprecedented five southern Democrats retiring at once, in a year when the South was moving further and further to the right".
I'm only slightly ashamed to admit that I found myself hoping that the strike would shut the Academy Awards down; that for once, in a year of such cinematic bounty and variety, appreciation for the best movies could be liberated from the pomp and tedium of Hollywood spectacle.
Some of the wells were found to be sampled more than once in a year.
The place is deserted, which is a once-in-a year situation.
He's grown into a once-in-a-year bowler instead.
Holidays tend to be a once-in-a-year luxury for families.
We suggest pouring yourself a glass of milk, because we're going on a no-calories-barred, crispy-and-creamy journey to celebrate the perfect storm of junk food, a once-in-a-year holiday, and our culinary zeitgeist of the moment.
The TV shows should be the regular Christmas comedy films, and mostly on TV, rather than DVD and VHS, to make that Once-in-a-Year feeling.
