The parade's ending brought us to the lighting of the Christmas Tree, as well as every person in mid-Michigan, who crowded around us so smoothly we didn't notice we were suddenly in a sea of people. After last year's fiasco --- where they tried a tree that was lit almost all in green with a red ``wrapping'' of lights --- and the moaning they got about this attempt at experimentation, they went for as aggressively non-novel as possible. That's a shame. I didn't think the experiment last year succeeded, but I appreciated the experimenting. This time around there's no novelty or experimentation, just a mesh of lights in approved standard colors. A lot of people apparently complained the tree looked crooked last year too; none of that this time.
And after that came the fireworks show as scheduled. I'd resolved to not try taking photographs of fireworks this time because photographs of fireworks never really work out; after all, what's impressive about fireworks is how they're framed only by the sky, and are surrounded with noise and smell as well as brightness. Photographs can't possibly do that. I gave in and took photographs anyway. Ray Davies would so write a song teasing me.
When that was done the crowd dissolved almost as suddenly (we went back to the parking deck and moved my car to a legitimate spot), and went into the city market to buy this year's commemorative Silver Bells ornament. This year's ornaments were hand-made things produced in small enough quantity that they were all sold out well before the parade came. At least it let us warm our feet, because it was cold out and I still hadn't got proper boots so was wearing the thin canvas shoes I got for summer.
We went back out to the shopping village, partly hoping that the report they'd sold out just meant that they'd sold out at the city market spot. No; they really had sold out completely and in the pre-orders. 
bunny_hugger was able to find a Christmas ornament which, while not tied to Silver Bells, was attractive anyway. The shopping village also had a cute old-fashioned sleigh for photograph-taking and some folks took pictures of us in it, for both our cameras.
Trivia: The New Haven District Telephone Company, which went into business in February 1878, initially had 47 subscribers, of whom eleven were private citizens. Source: Wondrous Contrivances: Technology at the Threshold, Merritt Ierley.
Currently Reading: King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter, The Man Who Saved Geometry, Siobhan Roberts.
PS: What Do I Need If The Final Is Worth 40 Percent, as it turned out my earlier grade summaries weren't quite everything everybody needed. Go figure.