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eBay has extended the out-of-stock feature to hold listings for 180 days before they are removed from the site. Described half way down this page:
https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/listings/listing-tips/bulk-listings?id=4160
With that feature, active fixed-price listings that have zero quantity are held, but are not displayed to the public. They also count against your monthly free listing limit. The benefit is that they remain as you left them until you increase the quantity to "one" or more, and then they become visible to the public again.
However, 180 days may not get you to the next season. You would need to visit your seasonal listings in the sixth month, force them to appear by increasing the quantity from zero to one, and after they appear, reset the quantity to zero to hide them again for up to 180 more days.
The out-of-stock feature is a global setting that applies to all of your fixed-price listings (does not apply to auctions). If you turn on that feature, the items that you sell won't go away either. They remain on your active item list, but with zero quantity. The negative aspect is that you would need to end those after they sell to avoid accidentally reviving them. A positive bonus is that if someone buys and cancels, you don't lose any momemtum bringing it back into stock with the same watchers and number of views.
