We are thinking about starting a new Christmas tradition this year:


A Vodou believer pours hot pepper-spiced homemade alcohol on her genital area, one of the key rituals during Gede, a Vodou holiday dedicated to Baron Samdi and the Gede family of spirits of the dead, while other believers, one clutching a miniature coffin, look on in the National Cemetery in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on November 1, 2003, which is All Saints Day and is also the first of two days devoted to the Gede, who are feted for most of the month of November.

One of the most important Vodou holidays in the country, but especially in the capital, Vodouists go to cemeteries to pray with food, coffee and peppered alcohol, to light candles and to put fresh flowers on graves, and then dance all night at 'peristyles' or Vodou temples. (AP Photo/Daniel Morel)