Picture your holiday decorations with an actual figure from the Marshall Field’s window displays — a boy riding an old-fashioned bicycle or Christmas carolers or even a miniature version of the famous Marshall Field’s clock. Thirty mechanized figures can each go to the highest bidder.

A new exhibit at the Elmhurst History Museum is celebrating department stores that originated in the Chicagoland area.

A small, windowless building on Block 37 is dwarfed by glassy new high-rises. A viewer wonders how it managed to escape the wrecking ball. Geoffrey Baer shares the story behind this unusual building, plus the history of the Marshall Field’s holiday windows and Kermit the Frog’s commercials for milk in this week’s edition of Ask Geoffrey.