Feeling jaded this holiday season? Try looking for the good people. You will find them.

A friend from Harpers Ferry posted a vintage photo this week of the old flagship Marshall Field store, all decked out for Christmas on State Street in Chicago. It had been a highlight of her childhood holidays to visit the store, and she remembered how dining tables were placed around a giant Christmas tree (in the Walnut Room) so shoppers could break for lunch.

I remembered walking down State Street one December day and seeing awestruck children lined up four or five deep to see the store's fairy tale-themed Christmas displays. I couldn't help smiling as those in front pressed their little faces against the windows for a closer look.

Marshall Field had a long history of marketing prowess. A partner in the store's previous incarnation, Field & Leiter, was Leitersburg native Levi Leiter. He'd managed to save enough of the store's merchandise from the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 to allow the store to reopen in a new location just a few weeks afterward. (Ten years later, his partner Marshall Field bought out Leiter's stake; hence the new name. Leiter then concentrated on real estate.)

A few years later, employee Harry Gordon Selfridge was appointed head of the State Street store. He was a marketing maven who coined the "Only _____ Shopping Days Until Christmas" slogan. He later took his department store model to London.

During one of those blustery winters I spent in Chicago, Marshall Field tried a marketing activity that should have paid huge dividends, and not just financial. It floundered, however, and for a rather sad reason.

It wasn't unusual at Christmastime to see workers dressed as elves ("jingle elves," to be precise) and handing out boxes of the store's signature Frango mints to shoppers.

But this particular year, Field's dressed more of its seasonal employees as jingle elves, armed them with Frango mints and sent them into the city to perform "random acts of kindness."

The elves would offer to pump your gas, carry your stuff, etc.

But in a city like Chicago, where I saw a co-worker mugged in our parking lot during one Christmas season, few were trusting enough to accept an offer of help from a stranger — even if that stranger were dressed as an elf and bearing Frango mints.

For the jingle elves, it seemed, no good deed went unsuspected.

When the Trib reported on the situation, many of us heaved a collective sigh. What a shame that we were so jaded we couldn't — or wouldn't — accept an act of kindness from someone we didn't recognize.

Marshall Field was gobbled up by Macy's years ago. The world has become a much more cynical place in the meantime.

Earlier this month I was talking with someone about the fact that it often seems as if truly good people can be in short supply.

"I believe they are," he said. But then he added, "when you look for them, you do find them."

They're not jingle elves paid by a retailer to hand out candy and goodwill, but regular people who choose to give help and kindness where they're needed. For example:

A couple of friends threw a Christmas party in early December, but it wasn't just any Christmas party. They used it to raise money to give a special holiday to a local family. The parents in that family were working, but not earning enough even for necessities. My friends raised enough not only to help that family, but a few others in similar straits.

I talked last week with a couple who lost their son to an overdose in 2020. They could have been plenty bitter about that, but they channeled their grief into creating a support group to help others cope with similar losses. And make no mistake — those losses can be unbearable without the support of someone who understands.

People all over our community are quietly trying to make life better for somebody else, whether they are volunteers at the homeless shelter, the church that provides a soup kitchen, the tutor who helps a child (or an adult) learn something new or the neighbor who helps out when a task is bigger than you are.

When you look for them, you do find them.

Each of us can choose whether to be one of those people. We can leave the job to others, or we can be better than that and jump in ourselves.

We don't even need Frango mints.

Let's be better, Hagerstown.

Want to finish your holiday gift list and do some local good? Here's a simple challenge

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: There are still good people around. Just look for them.