Oh, the holidays. Most families like to use Thanksgiving as a time to sit around the table and say how thankful they are for one another. My family likes to use the holiday as a time to make fun of me, and ridicule my illustrious childhood acting career.

Hey, I’m always game for a little self-deprecation. But some memories are sacred. Especially ones that involve having your Hollywood-bound hopes and dreams demolished by the onslaught of braces at age 13.

When it accidentally happens to come out that I was a child star in, say, cocktail conversations, classroom icebreakers, job interviews and Daily columns, I’ll casually mention that I may have been on Sesame Street, and been just a “Parent Trap” callback or two away from being, you know, Lindsay Lohan.

A recent Thanksgiving dinner conversation regarding the release of the earliest Sesame Street episodes on DVD would have been a perfect time for such anecdotes to likewise casually emerge. Unfortunately, for my mother and sister, it also represented the perfect time to mock my singing and dancing talents, and marvel at how I ever made it onto the Sesame Street 25th Anniversary Special in the first place.

As I watched the table of friends and kindhearted strangers, whom I had been planning to wow, explode into merciless laughter, I decided to put my star power to the test once and for all that weekend.

While perhaps delusional, I did realize that my rusty acting and tap dancing skills could never measure up to their past glory after such a long and tortured eight-year hiatus. There was only one remaining option: to test my inherent stage power in the raw.

And so, I found myself Saturday afternoon heading downtown to Manhattan’s School of Burlesque to see if I could hold my own in a class called, ahem, “Go-Go Moves for Go-Go Gals.”

Although I’m a fan of any situation that makes wearing tall boots with short skirts socially acceptable, I also felt like the instructor Angie was someone who could really relate to my youthful brush with fame. One of the “World Famous Pontani Sisters,” according to her online bio, Angie had made a name for herself in the burlesque scene before she was even old enough to enter a nightclub.

Having nabbed Coney Island’s Miss Cyclone 2007, Angie was faring in the business a bit better than I, but I figured she still might be sympathetic to my plight. And, you know, help me resurrect my childhood acting career as an adult go-go dancer or something.

Arriving at the class that day, I was relieved to see that the competition didn’t look too fierce. Wearing street clothes and sneakers, none of the students looked any better off than I did, so I figured my talent was in the clear.

Angie began the lesson walking us through basic moves like the “Sammy Davis, Jr.” and the “Stoplight” — moves that looked and felt pretty easy until I actually caught a glance of myself in the stage mirror, and saw what I was doing.

While no one in the class looked that good, I looked like one of those grooms-to-be who have to be dragged to six weeks of dancing classes just to get the vaguest hint of rhythm and coordination. I thought back on every time I had ever danced in public, and shuddered.

By the time we moved on to learning a full-on, choreographed dance called the “Kitty Cat”, I was feeling pretty self-conscious about my ‘skillz.’ But after practicing to the song “Do the Kitty Cat” a few times, I found myself getting into all the tail-shaking and claw-scratching my uncoordinated body could muster.

Saturday afternoon may have been the last day I ever decide to dance in public. But there are still some things that I’m grateful for this Thanksgiving. Hey, I may be a horrible singer, actor, and go-go dancer. But if at this point I’ve avoided cocaine, multiple rehab stints, and a rivalry with Hilary Duff, maybe missing out on all those Us Weekly covers wasn’t such a tragedy after all.