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"How much did Santa's sleigh cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This joke is met by groans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that makes supplies for gatherings. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

The firm's founder smiles, almost sheepishly at the joke. But the joke has made the cut and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the number of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," she explains.

The key to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up joke per se. It is entirely about the context - in this case, the shared laughter of the holiday dinner table with elders, kids and possibly neighbours.

"The goal is for the joke to be something that brings the eight-year-old together with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Science Of Shared Laughter

Gathering to experience shared laughter is not only ancient, scientists say, it is likely to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with others around the holiday table you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really primordial mammalian play vocalisation," says a professor.

Shared laughter, she says, helps make and maintain social connections between individuals.

Scientists have found that a lack of such social exchanges can seriously harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

"Those you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to increased levels of 'happy chemical' uptake," she adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as chuckling with loved ones over a particularly terrible festive cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a foolish pun with a holiday cracker," she says. "You are actually performing a lot of the really important task of making, maintaining the connections you have with the people you care about."

What Occurs Inside the Brain?

But what is actually happening inside the brain when we listen to a joke?

A tremendous amount happens in reaction to comedy, it transpires.

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of neural imager which shows which parts of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to map the areas that receive more blood.

Testing entails imaging the minds of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded chuckles.

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

A gag stimulates not just the areas of the mind responsible for auditory processing and understanding speech, but also brain areas involved in both preparation and initiating movement and those involved in sight and memory.

Put these elements together, and individuals hearing a pun have a sophisticated series of brain responses that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a funny word is paired with chuckles there is a stronger reaction in the brain than the identical word when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the mind that you would use to move your face into a grin or a chuckle," she explains.

It indicates we are not just responding to funny jokes, they are responding to the laughter that follows them.

Amusement, according to the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles found around a Christmas gathering?

"People laugh harder when you know people," she says, "and laughter increases more when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she says, the feel-good factor is more probable to be caused not by the joke in itself, but from the reaction to it.

"It's the laughter. The gag is the terrible holiday cracker pun, and it's just a reason to chuckle as a group."

The Search for the Ideal Festive Pun

Will we ever find the ultimate gag?

Likely not, but that has not stopped experts from trying to.

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

Over 40,000 jokes submitted, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, he has a better idea than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

The perfect Christmas cracker pun needs to be brief, he explains.

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

The increasingly "terrible" the gag, he states the better.

"This is because if nobody laughs – it's the joke's shortcoming, not yours.

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

"It creates a shared moment at the gathering and I think it's wonderful."