A Merry Christmas from the Nets to Brooklyn

From their annual Day of Giving to individual holiday efforts, the Nets and their players filled a lot stockings and made a lot of children happy.

The Day of Giving is the team’s big event. The Nets surprised kids from Children of Promise with holiday presents and a visit from Santa at Atlantic Terminal across Atlantic Avenue from Barclays Center

“It’s great whenever we as players are able to go into the community and get to know them face-to-face, meet the kids, meet the families who make up Brooklyn.” said Brook Lopez who led a contingent of players, staff and the Brooklynnets.

For Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, it was about making people happy.

“I had to tell some kids out there today, ‘it’s okay to smile,. it’s okay to cheer everyone else up’” said RHJ.

Individual Nets players used their foundations to host holiday parties, give away presents and food.

Isaiah Whitehead and Randy Foye took kids on a Modell's Shopping Spree. The Brooklyn Nets guards brought kids from Coney Island to meet their idol.

“It means a lot to these kids,” said Yader Bravo, youth and family director at the Coney Island YMCA. “They look up to Isaiah because he comes from their neighborhood. He’s someone who worked hard, he’s someone who went to a local high school. So dreams can come true.”

Said Whitehead, whose been active in Coney Island charities since the Nets drafted him, said it’s all about giving back.

“My main objective is to show them that I will never change. I’m from Coney Island. I feel I should give back, to show them I didn’t forget about Coney Island.

“It’s easy to just give them gift cards and say, ‘hey, just go shopping,’ but when I’m here with them, I’m actually helping them do it, I think it’s good,” he said.

Foye who’s done a lot of this in his 11-year NBA career, said simply, “It never gets old. it’s always important to give back to the kids.”

Trevor Booker helped spread holiday cheer by taking 10 families from the Brooklyn community on a shopping spree and Chris McCullough went to Montefiore Hospital to distribute gifts for pediatric patients.

The Nets won’t be on the NBA’s Christmas schedule, but they want their fans to know they understand the holidays.

And from us at NetsDaily, a joyous Christmas and happy holidays. Nets play again Monday night at Barclays vs. the Hornets.

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