Can't create and de-select a seasonal playlist

Used to be that you could create a playlist for Christmas season for example and then just deselect everything in that playlist and they would be de-selected in the general library or other playlists after Christmas. With the new iTunes, there is no way to deselect a group of songs except to remove them individually from the library. Anyone who can tell me how to mark certain songs to create a grouping that can be turned off in a quick way rather than having to select and remove them all?