Just in time for Christmas.

A Manhattan priest gave a New York City museum the greatest holiday gift this season — donating his sprawling, Nativity scene collection that he spent a lifetime cultivating from around the globe.

Father Louis Scurti, 80, gifted more than 100 little wooden figurines of Jesus, handcrafted angels and antique Wise Men to the Italian American Museum in Lower Manhattan, in what he said was a “bittersweet” moment.

“It was a joy to locate them and to know that they will be shared by more than the Scurti family,” the reverend told The Post.

“They have tons of visitors every year, and they have children going to the museum, and that’ll be a great education and exposure for them,” he said of the cultural organization, which called his gift a classic symbol of the Italian American Christmas.

“You come to a point in your life when things are timed, and timing is important,” Scurti added.

Father Louis Scurti donated Persipica to the Italian American Museum after spending eight decades collecting the sprawling pieces. Gabriella Bass

Scurti’s fascination with the “Persipica” — the Italian tradition of the Nativity scene — began when he was a young boy in Jersey City, NJ.

Each Christmas, he would forgo GI Joes and Hot Wheels in favor of playing beneath the tree with his family’s delicate Nativity scene that he would one day inherit, a hobby his relatives encouraged.

There are more than 100 pieces that Scurti collected across the globe. Gabriella Bass

When his parents gave him and his brothers cash to buy themselves treats at the holiday markets, Scurti instead opted to purchase additional pieces, like sheep or a bridge.

“My brother did the comic books. I did the Persipica,” said Scurti. “My parents supported my addiction.”

Scurti’s passion was unwavering, even as he began a career as a teacher before realizing his true calling was the priesthood, and he became a marriage and family therapy doctor before eventually going into semi-retirement at St. Anthony’s in Little Italy.

Scurti’s fascination started with his own family’s Nativity scene, which he ultimately inherited. Gabriella Bass

“My parents supported my addiction,” Scurti said. Gabriella Bass

Most of the pieces were collected from Scurti’s travels across the globe. Gabriella Bass

Travel became another major hobby for Scurti in his adult years, and he always made sure to scoop up an additional piece in each country he visited, with many coming from Rome and the Middle East, where the real-life Nativity played out.

While many of the pieces are in the classic style, Scurti also scooped up plenty of dogs, like a German Shepard and a Border Collie, and even a miniature turkey. There’s even a Greyhound dressed extravagantly as a Wise Man offering up some gold to the little baby Jesus.

The most expensive piece in the collection is the towering columns Scurti grabbed during a trip to Rome for a clean $500.

Scurti became so synonymous with the Persipica that friends would bring him back pieces as souvenirs from their own trips abroad, which he happily stuck next to ones that dated back to his grandparents’ 1940s marriage.

By the time Christmas 2024 rolled around, the hodgepodge collection had grown to more than 100 pieces — and was becoming noticeably more difficult to display for the holiday.

“It was getting to be a lot of work to set it up each year. It got to be a burden,” said Scurti.

Scurti called the collection “priceless.” Gabriella Bass

Scurti was recently transferred to preach in Little Italy, and while exploring his new neighborhood, stumbled across the Italian American Museum’s new home, which opened on Mulberry Street last year.

He offered Director Joseph V. Scelsa his entire collection on his first visit — save for a few small wooden pieces the Persipica addict couldn’t bear to part with.

“The rest was history. The Holy Spirit runs the whole show. I’m just an actor,” he said.

Between the family heirlooms and some of the pricier pieces, Scurti said the collection was truly “priceless” — and that he needed to get an appraisal to know its true worth.

” It was a joy to locate them and to know that they will be shared by more than the Scurti family,” he said. Gabriella Bass

But for Scelsa, the value lies in what Scurti’s Persipica represents: “A cultural piece of the Italian American community.”

“Almost every Italian American home has a Persipica in it. It’s just something that reminds us and brings us back to our family and our roots,” the museum’s founder said — adding that scores of visitors have been emotional upon seeing the display over the last two weeks.

The sprawling scene is the museum’s first very own Persipica at its new home, after renting one for the holidays last year.

The hodgepodge aspect of Scurti’s collection is what really sold Scelsa, he said.

“I love it because it’s so indicative of what we would do as an Italian American community. We put every possible element into it and then he’s got so many different, different pieces,” said Scelsa.

“It’s more representative of the folk people as opposed to a Lennox nativity scene … It’s not always beautiful people,” he said. “Sometimes they’re young, they’re very disfigured and they’re lame. And everybody is under God’s eyes and everybody is welcome to participate.”