If one dies before the year is up, was their New Year celebrating for naught?

no.

To whom would it matter? The dead person is dead and has no knowledge of his or her present condition. Life is about being optimistic of the future and not about the probability that death will visit anytime soon.

What better way to go out than surrounded by friends and fun? We should all be so lucky.

What better way?
To die in glorious battle, of course, to earn your place in Sto’Vo’Kor.

I made it, still partying.

New year celebrating is for naught anyway. He just went happy and optimistic!

I don’t even want to know your take on birthday parties!

The last one is fine, it is the next one that would be the problem.

Suppose they died on December 30 2016. They would be 365/366 fulfilled. They would have gotten their money’s worth.

Why would celebrating ever be for naught? What’s the alternative? Doing nothing special and dying the next day?

@kritiper The dead person is dead and has no knowledge of his or her present condition. Life is about being optimistic of the future and not about the probability that death will visit anytime soon.
Apparently the logic of that hasn’t sunk in to some as I made that point in the past but it seemed to have gone over heads. Along with that logic is even if a person will not be able to remember (they will, but for the sake of this question we will roll with they won’t be able), they were celebrating something they did not get to fully use, much less if they did not make it out of January before dancing with the Grim Reaper. So, in actuality one would be celebrating something they did not really receiver, unless they are celebrating just reaching it, even if they did not complete it.

@canidmajor I don’t even want to know your take on birthday parties!
The annual mortality marker? Of course you wouldn’t, people would rather be mired in play and fun and avoid the real like an ant hill full of fire ants.

@elbanditoroso Suppose they died on December 30 2016. They would be 365/366 fulfilled. They would have gotten their money’s worth.
Suppose they died (and someone did somewhere) at 6:30 am this morning, or they will die next week or Valentine’s Day, they got their money’s worth? They celebrated as if they would be here.

@JLeslie Why would celebrating ever be for naught? What’s the alternative? Doing nothing special and dying the next day? Why would celebrating ever be for naught? What’s the alternative? Doing nothing special and dying the next day?
If you are going to die the next day, you are going to die the next day no matter what you did. Would it not be a shame to have wasted that day (had you known it) partying when there was something more pertinent you could have done? As for an alternative, the day is far spent and I don’t have time to go into it, but there are always better options.

Oh, bullshit, @Hypocrisy_Central, a couple of days a year to celebrate various things is not at all “avoiding the real”. We do the real more than 50 weeks of the year, the celebrations are a good thing.

Pertinent? Having fun isn’t pertinent?

^ Pertinent to what or whom? Depending on the intent, it might be, other than that, how?

I must be missing something. Are you talking about getting sloppy drunk? Or, just having a good time with friends and/or family?

Once again, your premise is illogical.

People don’t celebrate a whole year on New Year’s, they celebrate the closing of the old year, and welcome in the new one. Same as they welcomed entering into the new millennium, even though no one around at the beginning of it will make it more than 12% into it.

@JLeslie Are you talking about getting sloppy drunk? Or, just having a good time with friends and/or family?
Either, unless you are simply celebrating you arrived and not that you have 2016 to complete whatever, it is for naught because you could be planning events, and such you will never see, to act as if 2016 is a lock is folly.

@zenvelo Once again, your premise is illogical.
Not really, but you can go on thinking it.

People don’t celebrate a whole year on New Year’s, they celebrate the closing of the old year, and welcome in the new one.
I hardly see anyone mention or much less, seem thankful they survived the year they left; it is all about the year coming and what is going to happen in it, or what they will do. Certainly no one lives the whole year off one day, which is the point, New Year day is just one day at the start of a year. There is no way to know how much of the year coming one will even have, so all the great plans, and such are at best wishes, and hopes, that one is here to do them.

Well, I’m convinced. From now on, all new year celebrations will be replaced with preemptive funerals.~

I’m with @Seek on this one. I think I’ll just read some Sylvia Plath and Virginia Wolfe. Round the evening out with some Russian Roulette and jumping into a tiger enclosure.

I’m with @zenvelo… I’m celebrating the fact that I got through another year. Same with birthdays. Another trip around the sun.

If it were all about the upcoming year why do we see so many “best of 2015” recaps? You said you hardly see anyone seem thankful they survived the year they are leaving… When I see that sentiment everywhere for the whole week leading up to the actual moment the clock strikes 12.