I think many people mistake paying respect to those of the past with maintaining tradition. There is a way to continue too pay your respect to those from your past, while still progressing and changing. We find ways to do it in our house. It changes every few years, but we still find ways to remmber parents, brothers, sisters, grandaparents and others who are now gone. They are what made the holidays special, not whether we had a real or artifial tree, or a certain dish at the table.
They have a thing here where they visit the graves a couple times a year. The cemetery isn't a scary place, it is filled with flowers and candles. It is quite nice, especially when there is snow on the ground.
We do here too. Not so much candles but flowers, and on Veterans Day and MEmorial Day there will be small flags on Veteran graves. I don't know, that is one tradition tha tseems to be okay.
I think on all saints day they do the graves for soldiers as well here. Also, there is someone standing guard at the memorials of the "unknown soldier" throughout the Christmas period.