O Christmas trees December 21, 2015 1:00 PM | Photo by Paula Burch-Celentano pburch@tulane.edu View PDF O Christmas trees, thy colors shine so brightly! A French Quarter residence is decorated to celebrate Christmas in many colors. The song “O Tannenbaum” was based on a traditional German folk song about the “tannenbaum,” a fir tree. In 1824, German organist and composer Ernst Anschutz penned the modern version of the carol, “O Christmas Tree.”