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"How much did Father Christmas's sled cost? Zero, it was on the house."

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

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that produces supplies for social events. Its catalogue features Christmas crackers.

The firm's founder smiles, nearly apologetically at the gag. But the joke has been selected and will appear in future crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the number of moans and the loudness of the groans around the table," the founder says.

The key to a good Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a good gag per se. It is all about the context - in this instance, the shared laughter of the holiday dinner table with grandparents, kids and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the joke to be a thing that brings the child together with the grandparent," she states.

The Neuroscience Behind Communal Amusement

Coming together to experience communal amusement is not only nothing new, scientists argue, it is probably to be pre-human.

"So when you are chuckling with others at the holiday table you are engaging in what's very likely a really primordial mammal social sound," says a neuroscience expert.

Shared laughter, she explains, aids in make and maintain social bonds between people.

Researchers have found that a lack of these interactions can significantly damage mental and physical well-being.

"Those you converse with, and laugh with, it results in increased levels of 'happy chemical' uptake," she adds.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as chuckling with loved ones over a truly awful festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply laughing at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," she states. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really vital work of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you love."

Which Occurs In the Brain?

But what is truly taking place within the brain when we listen to a gag?

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

Using brain scanning technology, a type of neural imager which shows which parts of the brain are more active, researchers have been able to map the areas that receive more blood.

Testing entails scanning the minds of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous phrases, paired with either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we observed a very interesting activation pattern of activation," notes the neuroscientist.

A joke stimulates not just the parts of the mind in charge of auditory processing and understanding language, but also neural regions associated with both planning and initiating motion and those linked to vision and memory.

Put these elements together, and individuals listening to a joke have a complex series of neural reactions that support the amusement we experience.

The Contagious Power of Laughter

Researchers found that when a humorous word is paired with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the same phrase when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in areas of the mind that you would employ to contort your expression into a grin or a laugh," the professor explains.

It means we are not just reacting to funny words, they are reacting to the amusement that accompanies them.

Laughter, says the expert, can be infectious.

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

"You laugh harder when you know people," she notes, "and laughter increases more when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she says, the positive effect is more likely to be triggered not by the gag itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever find the ultimate joke?

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

Years ago, a psychologist established a scientific project for the world's funniest gag.

More than tens of thousands of gags submitted, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a clearer idea than most as to what works and what fails.

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

"But they also be bad gags, jokes that cause us to groan," he continues.

The more "awful" the gag, he states the more effective.

"This is because if nobody finds it funny – it's the gag's fault, not your own.

"The fascinating part about the holiday cracker puns is that none of us considers them humorous.

"It creates a shared experience around the gathering and I think it's lovely."