Here's a great one that you can do. Get some wooden dowels - I'd say around 1/2" diameter or so, cut them into 6-8" lengths or so, drill a tiny hole through that you can get fishing line or jewelry string through, and paint them to look like the old fashioned candy sticks. Spray with a glossy finish once the paint is dry and string the line through. These really don't take long to make, and can be very different. Remember that these candies come in tons of different "flavors", so your color scheme options are endless. The initial cost is very low, and you can get several ornaments out of each dowel. You can use any size dowel that you want, but the 1/2-3/4" seem to turn out the best and hold up to the drilling better than the smaller ones.

Another ornament idea I've seen done is using the thicker dowels to make snowmen. You cut the dowel into marshmellow size pieces, string three pieces together (head, torso, bottom) and paint snowmen details onto them. The best ones I saw had black felt hats (homemade) attached to the top of the "head" with the string coming out the top of that. This project is a little more detailed, but if you like that sort of thing it's not so bad - and it depends how many you want to make.

Another ornament idea is to paint large jingle bells to look like snowmen heads and glue a felt hat onto them. Obviously, you could also string three bells together if you didn't just want to do the head. I've seen these done to look like reindeer also.

I hope these ideas help - there what I came up with off the top of my head. The candy sticks actually look really cute and are a twist on the traditional candy cane ornament.

those wooden clothesline pegs make really great "people". We turn them into ornaments. Paint the knob as the "head" and the rest as the "body". They make esp great Nutcracker Soldiers and Angels.

A few of my friends make cat nip bag/toys. Trace a very easy pattern or a rectangle, fold over stuff batting and some nip and whip stitch closed.
She buys the scrap pcs left over at the fabric stores and thrift shops and makes tons of them. Low cost and easy to make.

You can also do dog toys like this too. Stuff with crinkly material like food grade clear cellophane (the crinkly type for wrapping cookies)

I am a fan of multipurpose ideas and came up with this one a few years ago. I draw a design on a paint can and poke holes on the lines of the design, then spray paint the inside a metallic and the outside a x-mas color. tie a bow or string some beads on the handle and place a candle inside. the metallic makes the candle light brighter when lit and you can fill the can with goodies too! My favorite designs to see the candle light through are trees, wreaths, snowflakes (although snowflakes can be more detail work) and snowmen.

Also-have taken metal cloth and cut it into christmasy shapes, applied glue and sprinkled with glitter. I used big irredescent glitter that resembled snow.

don't know if you have time to do this one or not but you can make a case for people to bring their chopsticks in. It usually holds two pairs of chopsticks and has a tie to roll it up. Let me know if you need more info. Good luck!

wooden eggs, pom poms, black and white paint, yellow felt, googly eyes, and pipe cleaners.=penguins

paint the eggs black, with a white circle [penguin body]
make feet and beaks out of felt and glue them on, the pom poms and pipe cleaners become ear muffs.
then you just add the eyes :)