Most kids have trouble remembering what they dressed as every Halloween since they were little, but kids in a Shad Bay, N.S., neighbourhood don’t have that problem, thanks to Gisele Arseneau. “I thought it would be nice to be able to take pictures of the kids because I remembered being a young mother myself and how hectic it would be [when] you would never have a picture with a family,” says Arseneau. “I started in 1999 and every year the families would come and then the parents would want to be in the picture too, and then the following year I hand them over the picture.” Saturday will mark 27 years since she began the tradition. “I absolutely love it…It makes me feel young,” says Arseneau. When the MacQuarrie family moved to the neighbourhood in 2019, some of the kids were still in diapers. “It’s so nice every Halloween to go back and have those pictures already printed…I pull the pictures out and [the kids] go through and look at last year’s costumes or years and years prior, and a lot of times they have friends in the neighborhood that they get pictures with too. It’s fun to see everyone growing up together,” says Karen MacQuarrie. Now in her 70s, Arseneau says it’s her love for the kids and photography that keeps the tradition alive. “I hope they keep going indefinitely as long as Giselle can do it,” says MacQuarrie. For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
