Singing Christmas Carols in July

Every year around Late October/Early November we face a dilemma in the Clark household: When to start playing Christmas Music?

There are two competing factions:

1. My Mission President: President Checketts was fond of telling us that he could never understand why we didn't feel more comfortable singing Christmas Carols in July. If we were celebrating the birth and life of the Savior, we should be more comfortable singing the sacred songs all year round.
2. My Wife: Michelle has always revolted at the thought of playing Christmas music in July. For her, Christmas music is inappropriate until after Thanksgiving dinner*. Previous to this year, every time I've tried playing Christmas Music before then, she shrieks and gives a look of utter disgust before insisting I turn it off (or making my life unbearable until I do). Her reply to President Checketts' argument was always something akin to "It's just not right!" (How on Earth are you supposed to respond to such an argument?)

Of course, I have almost always found it unwise to disagree with my Mission President, and throughout my mission and the years since I've taken his addage as my rule. But the truth is, I could only ever get myself to agree with him in principle. If I actually heard Christmas Carols in July, you might actually have seen me cringing. I've wanted to believe, but I just haven't ever been able to bring such notions out of the realm of the theoretical and into practice.
My reticence (and Michelle's) to embrace Christmas Carols outside of the last 6 weeks of the year I've realized may not be all that bad. Christmas music for our family epitomizes the season. To hear it without the changes in the season, the shorter days, the Christmas lights, the Christmas trees, cookies, presents, vacation, and family gatherings, just ends up leaving me wistful because they I cannot have the rest of it. In that respect I have to avoid them in July for my own sanity and happiness. If we started celebrating Christmas twice year it'd probably be a different story. But since the whole package comes only once year, so too must the music.
That said, I've never wholly agreed with Michelle's militant insistence on waiting until after Thanksgiving dinner. I look at the three weeks following Halloween as a transitional period. Maybe a well chosen carol here and there as you feel the urge, maybe even stretching yourself a little in the 2nd and 3rd week to test the limits of your festiveness (It's probably best to save Bing Crosby and Mariah Carey for the 3rd week if you dare bring them out before Thanksgiving at all. Manheim Steamroller might actually be some good starter music or something else instrumental). It should be a time where we ease ourselves into Christmas music, and it'd be much easier to get into the Christmas spirit if such efforts did not meet with opposition.
You who are brave enough to start in October, though, (or sooner) are on your own.
*The warm weather in California this year had Michelle and I both wanting an early start on some Christmas cheer. To that end, Michelle let me turn on the Christmas music a week before Thanksgiving. With the sunny, warm weather, though, everything about it seemed wrong. That we wanted to play it at all, though, I should think bolsters my point.