The problem with most holidays? We create more work than is needed and often feel stressed out by it, instead of feeling connected to our family or spiritually rewarded. Passover can easily fall into that category with an extensive menu and many layers of ritual.

Here are some tips to keep it simple this year:

Prepare dishes in advance. Spread out the labor by making dishes like the matzoh-ball soup, brisket and cakes in advance. Set the table in advance as well.

Save the work. Keep grocery lists and recipes from the previous years stored in one spot so you don’t have to re-invent the wheel each year.

Keep the focus where it needs to be. When it’s all said and done, Passover is a deeply religious holiday where families and friends connect and reflect. Don’t make it a cooking contest. Consider the mood and main point of the holiday. And relax!

Another way to simplify Passover? Send your loved ones a free Passover e-card. Does it get much simpler than that?

With Passover right around the corner, we wanted to remind you to send your Jewish loved one a Passover ecard. It’s an easy way to share love and humor this holiday.

Now for some interesting Passover traditions that you may not have heard of, thanks to Beliefnet.com:

Every Passover, Jews prepare charoset, a sweet fruit paste. The result is meant to remind seder-goers of the mortar in the bricks that Jewish slaves in Egypt used in their labor. In the British territory of Gibraltar, a tiny peninsula off of Spain, where Jews have lived for about 650 years, there’s a special recipe for charoset: the dust of real bricks, ground up and mixed in.

Hasidic Jews from the Polish town of Góra Kalwaria, known as Gerer Hasids, re-enact the crossing of the Red Sea on the seventh day of Passover by pouring water on the floor, lifting up their coats, and naming the towns that they would cross in their region of Poland. They raise a glass at each “town” and then thank God for helping them reach their destination.

In a custom that began in Spain in the fourteenth century, the seder leader walks around the table three times with the seder plate in hand, tapping it on the head of each guest. Many Moroccan, Turkish, and Tunisian Jews adopted this tradition, which is said to bless those whose heads are tapped.

Perhaps you can connect with your worldwide family by integrating a new Passover custom (though you may want to pass on the brick dust).

Or how about a virtual tradition? Send your loved ones a Passover ecard to mark the holiday.