It could be the Christmas gift that helps send John “Junior” Gotti back to prison for life.

A former Gambino family associate testified yesterday that he gave Gotti $5,000 in annual holiday “tribute” as late as 2004 — which would be within the five-year statute of limitations for the racketeering charge against the mob scion, who claims he quit the Mafia in 1999.

Turncoat Michael Finnerty said he was among “24 to 30 people” whose names he once saw on a list of crew members who coughed up their Yuletide greetings in cash.

Finnerty said he often raised the dough by selling off vans owned by his film-production company, but in 2001 was forced to cash a Christmas Eve check from his Angel Aerial Corp. — writing “X- mas” in the memo line — after business dried up following 9/11.

The former mob enforcer told jurors about taking part in beatings, robberies and kidnappings for Gotti. He also recalled loaning his Cadillac to hit man Charles Carneglia for the 1990 gangland slaying of mobster Louis DiBono, whom Gotti allegedly had whacked for disrespecting his father, “Dapper Don” John Gotti. .