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"What was the price did Father Christmas's sleigh cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This joke is greeted with moans that echo through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation session with a firm that makes products for social events. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

The firm's owner smiles, nearly sheepishly at the joke. But the joke has been selected and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"You measure the gag by the number of groans and the loudness of the groans at the table," she explains.

The key to a good Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a good joke per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the communal amusement of the Christmas dinner table with elders, children and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the gag to be something that unites the child together with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Of Communal Laughter

Coming together to experience shared amusement is not only nothing new, experts say, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"So when you are laughing with others at the holiday table you are engaging in what's very likely a really ancient mammalian social vocalisation," says a neuroscience expert.

Shared amusement, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between people.

Scientists have discovered that a absence of such social exchanges can significantly harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

"Those you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to increased levels of 'happy chemical' release," she continues.

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in reaction to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly awful Christmas cracker gag.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are actually doing a lot of the really vital work of building, preserving the social bonds you have with the people you care about."

Which Occurs Inside the Mind?

But what is truly happening inside the brain when we hear a joke?

A tremendous amount occurs in response to humour, it turns out.

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the brain are more active, scientists have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood.

Testing involves scanning the brains of healthy participants and then exposing them to a database of funny phrases, paired with either a neutral sound, or recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we observed a very fascinating pattern of neural activity," says the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the parts of the brain in charge of hearing and understanding speech, but also brain regions associated with both planning and starting motion and those involved in vision and memory.

Put these elements as a whole, and people hearing a joke have a sophisticated set of neural reactions that support the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Nature of Laughter

Researchers found that when a humorous word is paired with laughter there is a greater reaction in the brain than the identical phrase when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This was in parts of the brain that you would use to contort your face into a smile or a chuckle," she says.

It indicates people are not just reacting to humorous words, they are reacting to the laughter that follows them.

Laughter, according to the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the laughter heard at a Christmas table?

"People laugh more when you know people," she notes, "and laughter increases more when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she explains, the feel-good effect is more likely to be triggered not by the gag in itself, but from the reaction to it.

"The laughter is key. The gag is the terrible holiday cracker joke, and it's just a reason to chuckle together."

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the ultimate gag?

Probably not, but that has not prevented experts from attempting to.

Years ago, a professor established a research project for the world's most humorous gag.

More than 40,000 gags later, with scores lodged by 350,000 participants around the world, he has a better idea than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

The perfect festive cracker joke must be short, he explains.

"They must also need to be bad jokes, jokes that make us groan," he adds.

The more "terrible" the gag, he says the better.

"The reason is that if nobody finds it funny – it's the joke's shortcoming, not yours.

"What's interesting about the holiday cracker puns is that none of us find them funny.

"That's a common moment around the gathering and I think it's lovely."