The zelkova trees that line Jozenji-dori, Sendai's most elegant boulevard, are bare in December. From early in the month until the last night of the year, six hundred thousand LED lights cover their branches — not in the shapeless cascade that many illumination events produce, but following the architecture of the trees themselves, each branch traced in light so that the boulevard becomes a tunnel of precise luminescence. The Pageant of Starlight began in 1986 and has become the defining event of Sendai's winter. The crowds that gather on the avenue on weekend evenings are large; the weekday evenings, particularly in the early part of December, offer the experience of the lights without the compression. The cold is real — Sendai in December is cold — but it is the kind of cold that makes the lights feel earned rather than decorative. Sendai is known for beef tongue and zunda mochi, for its summer Tanabata festival, for being the largest city in Tohoku. In December, it adds to these identities the specific and annual quality of Jozenji-dori at night, which is one of those things that people who have seen it tend to want to return to.