I hate the junk, too, so I've made the things that go in the bags, pirate themed for my guy's 4th Jake and the Never Land Pirates party in April. I made spyglasses out of paper towel holders, scrapbook paper, twine, and stickers, pixie dust necklaces from tiny bottles of glitter (Dollar Tree) and twine, pirate ship chocolate suckers, coloring pages I printed out and small boxes of crayons, and a sheet of stickers, then decorated plain brown kraft gift bags with twine, red ribbon and a 3D pirate sticker. I bought everything at Dollar Tree, or on sale and with coupons, and the cost per bag was just a few dollars. They came out great, kids and parents loved them.
However, it was a lot of work, on top of baking and decorating the cupcakes and cake (beach cupcakes and a treasure chest this year), and preparing the food. So I decided from here on out I'm going with one thing like a bag of cotton candy with a balloon tied to it, a bucket of sidewalk chalk ($1 at Dollar Tree), a Pez dispenser (Dollar Tree or $.99 Cents Store), a candy bag filled with the same candy from a piñata, an activity book, a take-out box filled with a popcorn/pretzel/m&m's/melted chocolate creation, or do a craft at the party they take home.
My eyes were truly opened when my guy said a few weeks ago, "Remember when you made the gifts for my friends for my party?" I then realized the party with the food, cake, goodies, bounce house, games, etc. IS their gift for coming, the "goodie" bag should be a token of thanks :)