I think what your friend means is discussed in this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_phenomenon
As you can see the date is believed to be 21 December, but given the global time differences it could be the day before or the day after depending on where you live.
There is really any really astrolgically significant line up on these two days, using the most frequently used set of planets. Of course if you add in some of the asteroids and other dwarf planets then you might find something, but I still would not take it as exceptional. The more objects you use the more likely you are to 'discover' a pattern between a number of them.
Whether you take the event seriously in a New Age way, really is down to your own views but I don't really see any Astrological event to analyse.