Rob Lowe plays a lawyer who is so obsessed with work that he misses a school concert where his daughter has a solo. He is also having problems with his marriage. Kimberly Williams is the volunteer choral director who finds out she has a fatal condition requiring a heart transplant for a cure to take place. Two families cross paths in a number of instances. Lowe's wife takes over for Williams, canceling an important job interview her husband worked hard to arrange. Williams' husband is the mechanic who ends up working on Lowe's car. Later in the movie, Williams' son, fearing his mother will be having her last Christmas, seeks to buy Williams a pair of special shoes which Lowe earlier found lying in the street, mysteriously intended to be delivered to a department store which did not order them. Lowe gets the shoes to the store (eventually) and later plays a role in helping the boy buy the shoes. The boy's teacher rents a room from Lowe's mother, who we know will probably die during the movie, since Lowe is visiting her grave at the movie's start, 15 years after her death. The boy faces numerous obstacles in his quest for the shoes, and while miracles do happen in the movie, not everything comes out the way you would hope.