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"How much did Father Christmas's sled cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This one-liner is greeted with groans that resonate through a storage facility in the capital.

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that produces supplies for gatherings. Its repertoire includes festive crackers.

The firm's owner smiles, nearly sheepishly at the gag. But the joke has made the cut and will feature in future crackers.

"You measure the joke by the volume of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," the founder says.

The secret to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a good gag per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the communal laughter of the holiday dinner table with elders, children and potentially neighbours.

"You want the gag to be a thing that brings the child in harmony with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Science Behind Shared Laughter

Gathering to experience shared amusement is not only nothing new, experts say, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people around the Christmas table you are engaging in what's very likely a really primordial mammal play vocalisation," explains a professor.

Communal amusement, she explains, helps forge and strengthen social bonds between people.

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

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it results in enhanced levels of endorphin release," she adds.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are released both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in response to pleasurable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a particularly awful festive cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," she states. "You are actually performing a lot of the really important work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you care about."

What Happens In the Brain?

But what is actually taking place inside the mind when we listen to a gag?

An awful lot occurs in reaction to comedy, it turns out.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of brain scanner which shows which parts of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood flow.

Testing entails imaging the brains of healthy subjects and then exposing them to a collection of humorous words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we observed a really interesting pattern of neural activity," notes the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the parts of the brain in charge of hearing and understanding speech, but also brain regions involved in both planning and initiating motion and those involved in sight and memory.

Put all of this as a whole, and people listening to a pun have a sophisticated series of brain responses that underpin the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a funny word is paired with chuckles there is a greater reaction in the brain than the identical phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in areas of the mind that you would use to move your expression into a smile or a laugh," she explains.

It indicates we are not just responding to funny words, they are reacting to the laughter that accompanies them.

Amusement, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles heard at a Christmas table?

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she says, "and laughter increases further when you like them or love them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she says, the positive factor is more probable to be triggered not by the gag in itself, but from the response to it.

"The laughter is key. The gag is the dreadful Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a reason to laugh as a group."

The Search for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the ultimate gag?

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

In 2001, a professor established a research project for the planet's funniest joke.

Over 40,000 jokes submitted, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of people globally, he has a better idea than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

The perfect festive cracker joke needs to be brief, he says.

"But they also need to be poor jokes, puns that make us moan," he adds.

The more "terrible" the joke, he states the more effective.

"The reason is that if no-one laughs – it's the joke's shortcoming, not your own.

"What's interesting about the holiday cracker puns is that not one person considers them funny.

"That's a shared moment at the gathering and I believe it's lovely."