If there are any accountants out there, please correct anything in this post that is wrong.  It is what I've been able to glean from my checking, not personal experience.

If you have losses from the past you have been carrying forward, I think you lose them if you go MTM.  One thing I don't like is paying taxes on gains that could turn into losses.  If you are up at the end of the year, and the market turns down, you still owe for the level of "earnings" you had at the end of the year.  The IRS lets you take all the risk of holding those positions. You will get your losses and the resulting decrease in taxes at the end of the next year, but why loan them your money for free?

As others have posted, you will not get trader status if you only trade a few times per month.  Do you get most of your income from trading?  Do you trade regularly, during all times of the day?  People who trade a lot more than you do have been turned down for trader status just because they only trade in the morning, for example.  Most of all, you will have a hard time getting trader status if you work at another job.

If you want to avoid the whole wash sale mess, be out of all positions at the end of the year.  Take a vacation; it's the holidays!