It can be fun to deck the halls, roast chestnuts or go on sleigh rides, but when it comes to a-wassailing, I find that there are four stages to enjoying or singing Christmas music.

These stages could be circled on the calendar, just like the big day itself:

1. Pre-Thanksgiving: Like holiday displays, it's far too early to hear Christmas music in early November. A telling example -- hearing tunes as early as the first week of November ... at a Panda Express Chinese restaurant.
2. Post-Thanksgiving: It's all right to slowly ramp up the music. I hosted "Evening Jazz" during the first really cold night of the year (Dec. 7). It was appropriate to play winter-y tunes, but I stayed away from the more Christmas-themed songs until ...
3. Dec. 11: Two weeks before Christmas, it's appropriate to crank up those favorite tunes. I played a few during my Friday radio show. It is strangely all right to have two radio stations in a small media market dedicated exclusively to holiday music.
4. Post-Dec. 25: Enough's enough. Christmas has come and gone. It's time to put those albums back on the shelve until next year when we repeat the cycle again.