M.A.
One of the best investments I've ever made was a big box of cookie cutters. You can also buy individual ones or even a small set of Christmas cookie cutters. Use them as patterns for small stuffed ornaments, posterboard background for glitter ornaments, to cut oven-baked dough for ornaments, or my favorite was the time we unrolled freezer paper on the patio floor and covered it with cookie-cutter shapes dipped in paint (homemade Christmas paper). For gifts: you can personalize just about anything (my adult sons still have the metal buckets that were personalized by their aunt when they were preschoolers!), print a favorite poem or famous quote with a calligraphy font and place in a frame (from dollar store or resale shop), grandparents always love a photo of their grandchildren, a simple sewing job of making a small bag (my M. uses the legs of old jeans) and filling it with hot wheel cars or nail polish, etc.