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

This quip is met by moans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a firm that produces supplies for gatherings. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

The firm's founder smiles, almost apologetically at the joke. But the pun has made the cut and will feature in future crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the volume of groans and the loudness of the groans around the table," the founder explains.

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 instance, the communal amusement of the holiday dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially neighbours.

"The goal is for the joke to be something that unites the child in harmony with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Science Of Communal Laughter

Gathering to enjoy shared laughter is not only nothing new, experts say, it is probably to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people around the Christmas table you are dropping into what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammalian social sound," explains a neuroscience expert.

Communal laughter, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between individuals.

Researchers have found that a absence of these social exchanges can significantly harm mental and physical well-being.

"The people you talk to, and share laughter with, it results in enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," she adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly terrible festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply laughing at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly important task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you care about."

Which Occurs In the Brain?

But what is actually taking place within the brain when we hear a joke?

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which indicates which parts of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the areas that receive more blood.

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

"During the study we got a really interesting activation pattern of neural activity," notes the professor.

A joke activates not just the parts of the mind responsible for hearing and interpreting language, but also brain regions associated with both preparation and initiating motion and those involved in vision and memory.

Combine all of this as a whole, and people hearing a joke have a sophisticated set of brain responses that support the laughter we experience.

The Infectious Power of Laughter

Scientists found that when a humorous word is combined with chuckles there is a greater response in the mind than the same word when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in parts of the brain that you would employ to move your face into a smile or a laugh," the professor explains.

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

Laughter, 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 others," she says, "and laughter increases further when you are fond of them or love them."

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

"It's the laughter. The joke is the terrible Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a reason to laugh together."

The Search for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the perfect joke?

Likely not, but that has not stopped researchers from attempting to.

Years ago, a psychologist set up a scientific search for the world's funniest joke.

More than 40,000 jokes submitted, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of people globally, he has a better idea than most as to what works and what does not.

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

"They must also need to be poor gags, jokes that cause us to groan," he continues.

The more "awful" the joke, he says the better.

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

"The fascinating part about the Christmas cracker jokes is that none of us considers them funny.

"It creates a shared experience at the gathering and I believe it's wonderful."