Is it true that you can never go home? Reporter searches for Christmases past.

Dec. 23—SIBLEY, Miss. — "Stop, Rick. I think we are passing it." It was the day after Christmas.

My brother, Rick, and I were rolling along the back roads of Sibley, a very small community on U.S. Route 61, 14 miles south of Natchez, Mississippi, our hometown.

Every now and then, a rifle shot or a shotgun blast sounded in the woods that flanked our course.

Deer season was still open, but we were hunting ghosts of Christmases past.

My brother was at the wheel of his Toyota Sienna, concentrating on his driving.

I had been staring into the densely forested countryside, trying to find the object of our search.

We were already leaving it behind when I saw it.

Rick turned around and drove slowly back to the remnants of our Paw Paw Stallone's barn.

It looked like a weathered skeleton, standing, but just barely.

Our maternal grandfather, Meno Stallone, had a cattle farm here when we were young.

We rode horses here, fished for bream in the ponds and hunted squirrels in the woods.

We gathered pecans down here to sell for extra money and tried not to get in the way too much while helping Paw Paw work his cattle.

But our grandfather died in 1975, the property now belongs to others, and the last time I had been here was Christmas week 1992.

I had returned to Natchez from Albuquerque that year to spend Christmas with my family, and my father and I had come here to see the old barn.

We had our photo taken in front of it.

How could I have known then it would be the last Christmas I shared with Dad?

Now, on this day 29 years later, Rick and I sat silently in the Toyota, looking at the rickety building.

But what I saw was my father and me standing there, our arms around each other's shoulders, smiling for the camera.

Ghosts are not difficult to find if you know where to look.

I'll be home

Natchez, founded in 1716, sits on a bluff above the Mississippi River.

Rick and I were born there, as was our sister, Tricia.

I started my newspaper career at the Natchez Democrat in 1973 and lived most of my first 28 years in the old river town before leaving in 1976 to work for The Albuquerque Tribune.

I don't get back to Natchez as much as I once did.

Not as much reason to go back as there once was.

Dad died in 1994 and Mom in 2000.

Rick now lives in Alabama and Tricia in Louisiana.

Until last December, I had not been in Natchez at Christmastime since 1999, the last Christmas Mom was living.

It had also been awhile since Rick was home for the holidays.

But he and I had been reminiscing about Christmas in Natchez and decided to find out if anything was left of the hometown holidays we remembered.

Did the city still put a giant Christmas tree in the middle of Main Street?

Did St. Mary's, the Catholic church in Natchez, still display the marvelous Nativity scene that mesmerized us as children?

On Dec. 19 last year, I flew to Alabama.

I stayed at Rick's home for a few days, and then, on Dec. 23, we drove the 340 miles southwest to Natchez and checked into a hotel near the river.

Christmas Eve

Early Christmas Eve, Rick and I put flowers on our parents' graves at the city cemetery, made a swing past the Catholic school where the Sisters of Charity had tried their best to educate us and then drove by our childhood home.

The house, now owned by strangers, looks nothing like the home we loved.

But I could envision the giant, plastic, electric-lighted candlesticks on our porch during Christmases of decades ago.

Hokey maybe, but we were proud of them.

Our plan was to go to midnight Mass at St. Mary's.

Rick and I had been altar boys at the church, and I remember serving midnight Mass, all splendid in my holiday red cassock and sparkling white surplice and all embarrassed, my face turning as crimson as my cassock, because I couldn't light that last candle towering above me on the altar's top tier.

But midnight Mass at St. Mary's would remain a memory.

We found out the church had not celebrated that service for years.

We drove instead the late-night Christmas Eve streets, looking at Christmas lights and other decorations, which seemed more scattered and sparse than what we recalled when we were kids.

Christmas morning

St. Mary's, originally called the Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows, was dedicated on Christmas Day in 1843.

Back then, the church had a shingle roof, unplastered walls and a rough floor.

Now, the church, officially named St. Mary Basilica, is a magnificent brick structure with spires, spectacular stained-glass windows, marble altar and communion rail and soaring columns mounted with near life-size statues of saints.

Last year, Rick and I were there for the 9 a.m. Christmas Mass.

The church was exquisite, the altar adorned with poinsettias.

But what pleased us most was that the Nativity scene from our childhood is still displayed in the church during the Christmas season.

It's a beautiful thing with large figures depicting the Holy Family, shepherds, oxen, a camel, sheep and more.

When we were kids, our family pew was near the front of the church, so close to the Nativity scene that we could almost imagine ourselves part of it.

After Mass last year, Rick and lingered in front of it, reliving the magic the manger scene had worked on us when we were children.

City sidewalks

For several hours on Christmas afternoon, Rick and I walked up Franklin and down Main, the two major streets in downtown Natchez.

The streets were quiet.

Most people were at home with their families.

Natchez's population was about 20,000 when I left in 1976.

It's around 15,000 now.

The factories that were in Natchez when I was young are gone and jobs and people with them.

Rick and I found that many of the downtown buildings we associated with our Christmas memories were empty, not there at all, or something other than they used to be.

During the Christmas seasons of our childhood, the Sears store turned its tire department into the place where kids visited Santa Claus.

My brother, sister and I used to stand in line there, waiting to make our pitch to Santa.

The building is still there, but it has not been a Sears store for many years.

Rick and I looked through the window of the former tire department.

What had once been a place where children expressed their Christmas dreams, now appears to be used for storage.

At the intersection of Main and Commerce streets, we strolled past a huge Christmas tree.

That's a Natchez tradition that dates back to before we were born.

But when we were kids, and earlier, the tree was real. Now, it's artificial.

Roll, river, roll

Continuing west along Main, we passed the place where our Great-Uncle Tommy Guercio once sold Christmas trees out of a warehouse.

That's where we bought our family tree.

What my brother and I remember most is how cold that warehouse was on gray, drizzly December days.

And then we were at the river, walking along a bluff fence hung with holiday greenery and red ribbons.

We were born in a hospital just a few blocks from the Mississippi River.

Like many things from our youth, that hospital building no longer exists.

But the river has always been our constant.

Times change.

Even memories change.

But that river, like the years, just keeps rolling along, and, like Christmases of the past, you can't bring it back.