tonight on "nightline," nightmare before christmas. we hear the music. we drink the nog. yet millions of us wait to buy our gifts last minute. and with unpredictable weather and record online sales, can they possibly get there in time? we go inside the biggest shipping companies determined to beat rudolph at his own game. countdown to about ma get don? a year from tonight the human race will end. at least that's what the mayan calendar says. tonight, we head into the central american jungle to find out why a growing number of people are so convinced we're doomed. and, the greatest gift. he is a white hot nba star with the season back on track. but dwyane wade is celebrating more than basketball this christmas. we bring you a rare behind the scenes look at his life at home as a single dad.

>> announcer: from the global resources of abc news, with terry moran, cynthia mcfadden and bill weir in new york city, the this is "nightline," december 22nd, 2011. >> good evening, i'm bill weir. it is the first night of winter. we have two more nights before christmas. and so the travel forecast looms large for so many of us out there. ma nature has been tough on denver, bringing two and a half feet of snow. another major storm down south brought wind damage across five states with a confirmed tornado touching down in alabama. reports of another one in rome, georgia, just a few hours ago. and tomorrow, that system will bring rain and possibly snow to the northeast. and travelers are not the only ones affected by all of this. anyone with a package flying around out there en route to a special someone should know that the biggest shipping companies are dealing with both weather

and record demand. americans spent 32 billion bucks shopping online this holiday. that's up 15% from last year. and they're not done. because it wouldn't be christmas without a little old fashioned procrastinati procrastination. it's the time of year that proves there are two kinds of people. those who completed their shoching and shipping weeks ago. and the other 99% of humanity. you realize you will probably pay much more in shipping than you will for the gift itself? >> i will be doing that. >> reporter: and you're okay with that? >> you got to get it there. got to be there christmas morning. >> reporter: but you can't blame them for buying into the magical story of american retail. you know the one that makes flying reindeer seem lame with promises of a christmas eve delivery, if you order by 1:00 p.m. tomorrow. how in the name of time and space is that even possible? well, stores like urban outfitters are betting their reputations on the muscle and

wits of guys like vinny. part of a global ups team that today delivered 300 packages a second. >> internet really changed the way we do business. a lot of people ordering online, a lot of different companies offer free shipping. discounted prices. many, many people take advantage of that. myself included. >> reporter: but if you are paying your own freight, brace yourself. you send a five-pound package from new york to l.a. tomorrow, upa and fedex say it will get there by christmas eve but you will pay around $140. in exchange, your gift will get a ride on a couple of the 549 jets ups flies, it will be scanned around 23 times while it rides some of the 155 miles of conveyor belts at their monster hub in louisville, eventually catching a lift on one of the 93,736 goody-laden vehicles buzzing around the globe. but all the horsepower, jet power and computing power means

nothing if the weather turns grinchey. and that's why on nights like this, the hopes and dreams of children everywhere rest on the shoulders of jim. >> we have a line of thunderstorms going through the southeast right now. atlanta is one of our busier airports. >> reporter: as a ups meteorologist, when the alarm comes out of his workshop, thousands of people have to adjust. and as for this year? >> our prediction for this holiday season is very good. there will be snow. it's north of the airports where we land our large jets. so, i believe all the packages will be able to be delivered on time. i would say everybody is in good shape to get their packages this year. >> reporter: the weather watchers at fedex have a setup that rivals the national hurricane center and they are warning that the storms in colorado could cause some package delays out west. and then, there's the human element. and what do you think of people who mail their packages so late, who cut it right down the wire? >> maybe they won't get there on time. >> reporter: you can feel the ups bosses cringing at that

admission, just like the ones at fedex who had to apologize for this rather rough delivery of a computer monitor. and the post office in florida just delivered a package that was sent out 15 days before last christmas. but even some of the big stores are red-faced tonight. best buy his apologizing for failing to deliver items ordered online around thanksgiving. so, even the early birds are at the mercy of a system that occasionally stumbles, but only rarely. still manages to get hundreds of millimeters of gifts under the tree on time. kind of miracle that comes with the hard work of countless hidden helpers. >> kind of like a little elf for santa. >> reporter: one of ups's little elves. i had that job in college one summer. hardest thing i've ever done. so, hurra to them and may all your presents arrive on time. still ahead. 2012. first came the disaster movie, now comes the countdown to the

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>> announcer: "nightline" continues from new york city with bill weir. >> it is the stuff of scripture, disaster films and a catchy r.e.m. diddy. the end of the world as we know it. while there have been plenty of crackpot predicks over the years, some still say that doomsday will come exactly one year from tonight. wind erpt solstice 2012, which seems to call for a command performance for our search of the apocalypse foretold, with abc's david wright. >> reporter: what if an ancient civilization could predict the future? >> the mayan calendar predicts

the end of time to occur in 2012. >> reporter: may not just be the stuff of movies like "2012." a surprising number of people actually believe that one year from tonight, it's all over. mark your calendars and say your prayers. >> i believe the mayan calendar was based on some incredibly good astronomy. they were really good at knowing when. they weren't so good at saying what's going to happen then. >> reporter: author lawrence joseph believes doomsday will come from solar flares. bursts of raid yidiation from tn that he says will peak at the end of 2012, penetrating the earth's magnetic field and scorching the electrical grid. >> in 2012 or sometime soon, our power begin is going to be assaulted by a solar blast that could knock it and our civilization to its knees. >> reporter: he and other 2012ers look to the ancient mayan calendar, according to which, time began on or about,

august 11th, 3000 b.c. and end december 22nd, 2012. >> the lounng-count calendar wa invented 2100 years ago in southern mexico. >> reporter: so, in search of answers, southern mexico is where we went. deep in the central american rain forest. we searched for clues amid the ruins of the ancient mayans. in the city here. >> this is where we believe mayans sacrificed the captives they took in battle. >> reporter: our guide? christopher powell, who helped with some of the most important excaucasians for this civilization that mysteriously vanished more than 1,000 years ago. >> i consider it a great mystery and one that i'm willing to see out with an open eye. >> reporter: the rosetta stone for 2012 against monument number six, a collection of

hieroglyphics unearthed in the '60s, scattered to the four corners of the earth. a few years ago, the texts were translated and set off a fire storm. >> it says, and then it happened and then the verb is missing. it's eroded. >> reporter: that missing verb has opened a pandora's box of new-age prophesprophesy. in this city, we met star johnson motioner, who believes her crystal skulls feed her information about the coming events of 2012. for star, the new age is truly about to begin. do you think the world as we know it is going to come to an end? >> perhaps that date, there's a great alignment, a great opportunity. perhaps a great leap in consciousness. >> reporter: others are taking no chances. florida developer larry hall showed us his plans for a decommissioned missile silo he recently bought out in kansas. a 15-story luxury bunker, built

to house 50 people indefinitely. how does this relate to 2012? >> well, 2012 has a lot of people concerned. they'd rather have a plan b. and this plan b beats everyone else's plan a, b and c. >> reporter: noah's ark for the paranoid man who has everything. each condo will have enough food for four years. >> this is four man years of food right here. >> reporter: complexes will hav treated water, even a fitness room and indoor infinity pool. so, how much does this go for? >> there's two configurations, a full floor unit which is $1,750,000 and a half floor that's $900,000. >> reporter: have you sold any yet? >> yes, three. >> reporter: all of them cash up front. tough to justify a 30-year mortgage when you're betting the ban track the world is going to end. one person who won't be getting out his checkbook is christopher powell. >> i'm not worried. i don't think we should be.

there's no real reason. there's no real prophesy that says this is going to be the end of the word, not from the mayan ruins, anyway. >> reporter: what does your gut tell you is going to happen in 2012? >> the sun is going to rise and it's going to fall. and a lot of people are going to be watching it. >> reporter: i'm david right wr for "nightline" in mexico. >> make next year the best ever, just in case. thanks to david wright. and still ahead, at home with an nba superstar/single dad. [ male announcer ] all over the world, there's a battery that's relied on to help bring children holiday joy, and while it doesn't travel by sleigh or reindeer, it does get around... in fact, every year duracell sends loads of batteries to the mattel children's hospital, u.c.l.a. of course, children here and everywhere don't really think about which battery makes their toy run... but, still... you'd never want to disappoint. duracell. trusted everywhere.

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a sobering 70% of african-american children are being raised by a single parent, mostly moms. but nba star dwyane wade is one of the most visible single dads in america. a man who fought harder for custody than any rebound. it's just one reason president obama holds him up as a model of modern fatherhood. and abc's juju chang got to see the all-star in a whole new light. >> drives on marion. trying to draw contact. difficult shot from wade. >> reporter: miami heat star dwyane wade is itching to get back to work. i bet you are. raring to go. >> that's my christmas present. i can't wait.

>> reporter: but the end of the six-month nba lockout is also bittersweet for him, because behind the multimillion dollar brand and those super human athletics, he's a doting single dad, raising two sons and a nephew. >> when the boys first moved down, i was one of the only dads. they called me mr. mom for awhile. >> reporter: wade often speaks out against the epidemic of broken homes. >> keep it up. >> reporter: there are a lot of critics out there that would be oh, sure, it's easy for you, d-wade. you're a millionaire nba player. >> it's not about how much money i have or don't have. it's about the time i'm willing to sit down across the table from my kids. and if they don't get something right, helping them to. >> reporter: and wade never wanted to be a deadbeat dad, despite a three-year custody bat with his high school sweetheart. not many fathers fight for custody. what made you do that? >> i wasn't going to let nothing stand in my way of letting them

know that i'm here and i'm not going nowhere. i'm going to be your dad, i'm always going to be your dad and i'm going to fight. >> go see mommy here. >> reporter: 4-year-old zion is marking the days when he gets to see mom. >> no matter the relationship me and my ex-wife have, my kids love her. and, you know, they days are better when they talk to her. >> reporter: and to understand how much the idea of family means to him -- >> this is the building. >> reporter: you need to know where he came from. >> sit down on that stoop, sometime all night sitting out there waiting to see if his mommy's going to come past. >> reporter: his mom jolinda abandoned him in a sense in a downward spiral, as he was growing up on chicago's harsh south side. >> got deeper, deeper into the dark drugs, alcohol, abandoned buildings, the homeless life style, you name it, jolinda was there in it. >> not knowing if my mom was going to be alive or not.

that's something that at 6, 7 years old, i had to think about. >> reporter: his sister took him to live with his father. >> i thought we were going to the movies. she just dropped me off and she never came back. >> i said, let me just see, you know? and dad kept him. >> reporter: he also brought basketball into your life? >> he did. he put the ball in my hand. it became a big gift. >> reporter: that's a whopper of a gift. >> reporter: he got a scholarship to play at marquette. his mom worked hard to get clean and sober. but she decided she had to turn herself in to serve out an old jail sentence. >> it was tough. it was one of the worst days of my life and it hurt. i cried. >> that's when he told me, he said, you say i'm your hero, he said, you're mine. and that's all i needed. oh, my god. now i can do this, god, i can do this. because i was his hero. isn't that something? >> reporter: he became a first round draft pick for the miami

heat. there's a championship and an mvp title. when his mother finally got out of jail, she walked right into the open arms of her family. >> i just held her and cried with her and cried happy tears for once. >> reporter: no one would have blamed you for being angry and you did nothing but embrace her. >> i knew because of the mistakes that she made, i was going to make sure that i, you know, that i did different. >> but what i have experienced. >> reporter: forgiveness is now pastor jolinda wade's ministry. and it was dwyane wade who bought her the church, new creation. >> because of his generosity, the heart that he has, i said, you're feeding people. you're clothing people. it's so much that he's doing and his body is not even here. >> reporter: you are telling me that dwyane wade is a momma's boy? >> yes, he is. >> reporter: tell the truth. you are totally intimidated by me, right? >> totally. >> reporter: d-wade definitely has a soft side.

>> oh, that was nice! >> reporter: look at that. i got my first nba assist. and he'll be the first to tell you he's a lucky guy. >> oh! >> reporter: not because of his life on the court but because of who is waiting for him when he gets off it. i'm juju chang for "nightline" in miami. >> and a new appreciation for the man when you watch wade and the heat in a rematch of the nba finals with the mavericks sunday afternoon, start of a christmas day doubleheader, right here on abc. thanks juju, for that. tomorrow night, an exclusive interview for the holidays, president obama and the first lady sit down together with our barbara walters to talk about their tradition, sharing personal insight, also answering some questions from the kids out there. we hope you check us out tomorrow night. and we thank you for watching abc news. our friends at "good morning america" are working while you're resting. they'll have the very latest. we're always online at abcnews.com.