Former Bachelorette Ali Fedotowsky recently gave birth to daughter Molly with fiancé Kevin Manno, and soon they'll face another milestone as a family: the holiday season. While it can be a crazy time for a new mom, Ali Fedotowsky shared her holiday preparation tips and plans in an interview with Bustle, along with fun plans for her daughter's first Christmas. "We're excited to do all the things and get photos of us as a family celebrating our first Christmas together," she says.
Her plans include starting a holiday photo tradition with Molly, as well as taking her to a pumpkin patch for the first time for some cute photo ops. "[For Christmas], I'm thinking of buying a bunch of toys and wrapping them for a really cute picture with Molly and then donating them, because, let's face it — she's a baby, she doesn't need that much," Fedotowsky says. "So, I feel like that would be so much fun and we could donate it to a charity in Molly's name, plus we could still get the cute photo of her surrounded by Christmas presents. I think that would make such an adorable photo."
She continues, adding the main lesson she hopes Molly takes away from everything: "And maybe we'll keep doing that with her every year, so she can learn growing up that yes, it's nice to get things, but it's also important to give things."
But, Ali says first comes a lot of preparation before the holiday season hits. The former reality star and now lifestyle blogger at AliLuvs.com suggests starting your holiday cleaning right now in order to be ready for the onslaught of Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Eve events. "Early October is really the perfect time, because you can get the deep cleaning done and then it's Halloween, so you're going into Thanksgiving mode right after that," she says. "I'll do a deep clean on the house now, so that when the holidays actually come around, there's not as much work to be done. Doing things like cleaning the fireplace, clean the mats in the bathroom, clean the window sills and the door frames — doing a deep clean like that is really important now."
Fedotowsky also advises getting your guest rooms ready (for your holiday visitors), decluttering and organizing your cabinets, and deep cleaning the fireplace. But, with a new baby in the house, she highly recommends using an all-natural cleaning product, such as Four Monks Cleaning Vinegar, so her child isn't exposed to chemicals. "If you look at the ingredients, there's like two — vinegar and natural scent. It's so safe — you could literally eat it, that's how safe it is," she says, adding that she also uses it to clean Molly's toys. "It really is all-purpose — you can use it to clean toys, sweaters, rugs, kitchen counter-tops. You can actually use it to clean pesticides off vegetables."
In addition to cleaning up, Ali says she also hopes to have some time enjoy all the things she loves about fall and winter with her fiancé and daughter. "My favorite thing is the smells, like fall, Christmas, and Thanksgiving smells are my favorite — apple pies and the pumpkin, just the coziness of fall. I can't wait to curl up in front of the fireplace with a mug of hot chocolate, or apple cider or a pumpkin spice latte."
Sounds like she and her family are all set for a fun, cozy, (and clean!) holiday season.
