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

This quip is met by moans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a company that produces supplies for social events. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

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

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

The key to a good holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a good gag in itself. It is all about the context - in this case, the shared amusement of the holiday meal with grandparents, children and potentially neighbours.

"You want the gag to be a thing that unites the eight-year-old together with the grandparent," she adds.

The Neuroscience Behind Shared Laughter

Gathering to experience communal amusement is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is probably to be pre-human.

"So when you are chuckling with others around the Christmas dinner you are dropping into what's very likely a really ancient mammalian play sound," says a neuroscience expert.

Shared amusement, she explains, aids in make and maintain social connections between people.

Scientists have discovered that a lack of such social exchanges can seriously damage mental and physical health.

"The people you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to increased amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," she continues.

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to reduce tension and discomfort and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly awful festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," she says. "You are actually doing a lot of the really vital task of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you love."

What Happens In the Mind?

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

A tremendous amount happens in reaction to comedy, it turns out.

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

Testing involves imaging the brains of healthy participants and then exposing them to a collection of humorous phrases, paired with either a neutral sound, or recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we got a really interesting pattern of activation," notes the professor.

A gag activates not just the areas of the mind responsible for hearing and understanding language, but also neural regions involved in both preparation and initiating motion and those linked to vision and recall.

Put these elements as a whole, and people listening to a pun have a sophisticated set of brain reactions that support the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Scientists found that when a humorous phrase is combined with chuckles there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the identical phrase when followed by a neutral sound.

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

It means people are not just responding to funny jokes, they are reacting to the laughter that follows them.

Laughter, says the expert, can be infectious.

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

"You laugh harder when you know people," she notes, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good factor is more probable to be triggered not by the joke in itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever find the ultimate joke?

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

Years ago, a psychologist set up a research search for the world's funniest gag.

More than 40,000 gags later, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what works and what does not.

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

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

The increasingly "terrible" the gag, he states the more effective.

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

"The fascinating part about the holiday cracker puns is that not one person find them funny.

"It creates a shared moment at the table and I think it's lovely."