From everything I have heard and read about 2022, there seems to be almost a consensus that it was a difficult year, one of those that everyone wants to say goodbye to right away. Many deaths, apprehension and division with the elections, intensification of divergences, and also the effects of the pandemic, which continued to impose itself intermittently.

The end of the year, as always, has arrived with its promise of parties, vacations and the hope of a better, more prosperous new year. It was in this context that I found myself recurrently thinking about magic. Of course, Christmas usually – for those who, like me, like this date – bring this atmosphere of magic, of lights, of red and green, of delicious food, of being close to those you love.

In a brief search for the word magic, one soon finds, on Wikipedia, the following definition: "application of beliefs, rituals or actions employed in the conviction that they can subjugate or manipulate natural or supernatural beings and forces". But the magic that kept coming to my mind was not exactly that, but a magic that takes place in the ordinary, in the ordinary. The extraordinary that can be found in banalities, in everyday life.

It was then that I watched the Norwegian series A Storm for Christmas , available on Netflix and which has only six episodes, lasting about half an hour each. The entire series takes place at Oslo airport, on the night before Christmas Eve, when a heavy snowfall leads to the cancellation of all flights. Thus, passengers have to spend the night at the airport, until weather conditions improve and flights resume.

We get to know several characters and, from the interactions between them, we get to know their stories, their pains and difficulties.  (Attention! From this point on, I give some spoilers).

Among the characters, we meet a young singer at the height of her career, but extremely sad and lonely. A mother who used all her savings for her son's surgery, a boy who is losing his sight and starts to have other heightened senses. A kind and sensitive bartender, who has just received serious news about his health. A man who dresses up as Santa Claus and who is unhappy with his job, as well as frustrated with the requests made by children. A cantankerous pianist, whose career is in decline. A rational and skeptical pilot who meets a dreamy and naïve girl.

A girl whose parents fight constantly and who gets lost on purpose at the airport. An executive who thinks that, with her money, she can buy everything and everyone, including the change of weather. A taxi driver who sees in her something that seemed lost, her humanity, her generosity. A pastor who works at the airport and who, with her sensitive gaze and listening, is always willing to help passengers and employees.

These are some of the characters we discover throughout Christmas Blizzard, in a simple and exciting plot. Each viewer will be able to identify with the story of some of them. The center – if you can call it that – is in the meetings, in the intersection of the stories of these people, which will awaken the most diverse emotions and feelings in each other. The series reminds us that it is possible to establish deep bonds between strangers, a certain intimacy that is established in minutes.

I was then led to the idea of magic to which I referred earlier. The magic that is in the most fortuitous encounters. The relationships and exchanges that can take place between the most complete strangers. Ties that can extend in time or ties that rely precisely on the power and meaning of transience.

Christmas Blizzard It makes me think that there is potential for magic in ordinary life, that perhaps there is even something supernatural in the encounters that it can provide us. In the manner of poetry , a state of openness and availability can make a lot of difference for the magic to manifest.

End-of-year texts tend to be clichés. I will not do it differently. I close the last text of 2022, hoping that in 2023, we can find magic in the most complete banality. May we unravel the thread that the other throws at us and make a tie of it.