For the eighth year in a row, Vallejo will venture down the rabbit hole and go a little mad. Christmas is just around the corner, and so is the Mad Hatter Holiday Festival.

Vallejo’s historic district will again be a celebration of the weird and wonderful with everything from a parade to music to beloved characters to food to metallic dragons that shoot fire…and that is just skimming the surface.

Event organizer Frank Malifrando said the idea came while he was working for Sutter Health, which had its holiday party in Fairfield on the same day as its annual tree lighting, which drew 1,000 people that year. A week later, Vallejo had its own tree lighting, and Malifrando was disappointed to see that only 150 people showed up.

“I felt ‘This needs to change,’” he said.

Malifrando went around to several local organizations about the possibility of doing a holiday festival to celebrate Vallejo’s diverse population. They were initially skeptical but eventually got on board when Malifrando said he would run the event and utilize various groups. He chose to call it the Mad Hatter Holiday Festival in reference to people still feeling angry in the wake of Vallejo declaring bankruptcy a few years prior.

The initial event was a success, drawing between 800 and 1,000 people, according to Malifrando. It has grown to nearly 10,000 attendees each year and continues to offer new features.

“It’s sort of like a makers faire and Disneyland and a New Orleans Mardi Gras at the same time,” he said.

The parade will feature Cinderella’s carriage, the Mad Hatter’s teapot and other Wonderland characters such as the Cheshire Cat and White Rabbit. It will also feature a variety of famous faces from “Star Wars,” “The Lion King,” “Transformers,” Wonder Woman and more. Additionally, it will be a showcase for battleships, lighted tricycles and airships created by Vallejo’s steampunk collective Obtainium Works.

It only gets bigger from there. The California Maritime Academy Cadets will waltz through the parade, local high school marching bands and Color Guard groups will provide music and choreography, dancing horses will wow the audience, the Mad Hatter’s Flash Mob Dancers will perform a surprise routine and the fire shooting Dragon Wagon will be one of the Burning Man sculptures making an appearance.

The grand marshal this year is Roy Rogers, an acclaimed Grammy-nominated slide guitarist who has worked with the likes of John Lee Hooker, Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt and Sammy Hagar. Rogers graduated from Vallejo High School and has returned to town often to perform at the Empress Theatre. Malifrando said having famous Vallejo residents serve as grand marshal has been a tradition for the event, dating back to the original festival when Olympic swimmer Natalie Coughlin was given the honor.

“I sent out invites (to notable people from Vallejo), and Roy Rogers responded and said he’d love to be the grand marshal,” Malifrando said.

The organizer said Rogers would be bringing his guitar and performing a holiday song.

The honorary community organization this year is Supporting Our Cancer Kids, a Vacaville nonprofit that formed in 2011 to provide programs for families of children with cancer.

“(It’s) getting them involved with fun events and things to do that take their mind off of anything negative or pain they’re going through,” Malifrando said. “They meet weekly and do programs on survival issues and things they bring up in support groups. They’ve been going since 2011, and it’s just grown. It’s made a big difference with kids, putting smiles on their faces.”

Other features include various food courts— including one surrounded by Astro Botanicals’ inflatable forest, as seen at the Benicia Mini Maker Faire and other places—, a wine and beer garden and a lighted boat parade. It all ends with an afterparty at the Empress, featuring a concert by Marin County bands The Tasmanian Devils and Deep Blue Jam.

Malifrando is pleased by how much the festival has grown since its inception.

“It’s really become something that’s special for the Bay Area, as opposed to just Vallejo,” he said.

The festivities will begin at 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 2 at Vallejo’s Unity Plaza, located at the corner of Santa Clara and Georgia streets. The parade will start at 4:30, the tree lighting ceremony at 6, the lighted boat parade at 6:30 and the afterparty at the Empress at 8. For more information, go to HatterVallejo.strikingly.com.