Problem is, a lot of homemade stuff can end up quite costly just for equipment/ingredients. I made chutneys a couple of years ago and by the time I'd bought all the ingredients I'd spent quite a bit, though it went quite a long way I suppose. Baskets etc for homemade hampers are normally a few quid each too, just for the basket, though I managed to find some gift boxes and the bases to old Ferrerro Rocher boxes that could be repurposed with the addition of some pretty tissue paper.
Gingerbread men/stars/trees? Or shortbread?
Are you close enough to the people you want to buy for to tell them money is tight? Perhaps you could all agree to a Secret Santa or a £5 budget per person limit or something? The other thing can be to ask if there's a task you can do for them as a gift, IYSWIM. I once asked someone to sort out finding an artist and some inspiration for a picture I wanted drawn. This year I'd quite like someone to figure out how the hell to fix my car radio - I'll pay, I just want someone to sort it all out for me. That might be a nice sort of gift if anyone you need to get a present for is the Time Poor type.
I suppose thinking about it the other way, is how to make sure the kids still have a nice pile to open without spending as much to free up a bit for other people? My parents always spent not much on us, but we always had piles to open. Partly it was by wrapping things separately that might otherwise have been wrapped together, partly by buying things for Christmas that were really just necessities, like PJs and stationery. The other thing they often did if we had one expensive present so fewer things to open was to set up a treasure hunt with clues - the year we got mobile phones (and very little else) was really memorable because of the cool treasure hunt.
