So this is where the training wheels came off. I’m currently on Chapter 2 of the Canon 450 for Dummies book (yes, it is a real book and yes, I did buy it), which is about the automatic modes, so I hadn’t even read up on what button does what in manual. But turns out, if you fiddle around it’s easy enough to figure out.
I spent the fireworks display fiddling around with ISO, aperture and shutter settings to see what I liked best. I probably took about a hundred photos on continuous shooting mode, but here are a couple of my favourites:
Knit your own yoghurt 
Lovely!
I know it’s really tricky to take good photos of fireworks (with an automatic camera at least).
Did you have a tripod?