I guess that DMcG must be referring to what I would call conventional or community carols, such as would be sung in carol services (or played as supermarket musak), and I would not like to make any judgement on what is trending there. But othere contexts are available: there is of course the Sheffield pub carolling tradition which is very strong and here in Gloucestershire there is a group near Stroud that sings Sheffield carols every year.

There is also a strong movement in the folk world to seek out and perform folk carols. Where I live, in the north of Gloucestershire, we have a folk choir "Shepherds Crook" which specialises in locally-collected carols and thus we sing "The Cherry Tree Carol", "Hark, hark what news", "All Hail and Praise", a local version of "While Shepherds" and a wassail collected from the Brazil family. (We also throw in Good King Wenceslas and Ding Dong Merrily on High for good measure.)

May I add that Mrs Tradsinger and I give lots of talks/presentations every Christmas talking about local carols and wassails. So we are doing our best to keep these carols in circulation.

There are a large number of Christmas songs collected in Gloucestershire and there is a website to prove it. Have a look at http://www.gloschristmas.com/

Tradsinger