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

This one-liner is met by groans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation session with a firm that makes products for social events. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

The company's founder smiles, almost sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has made the cut and will feature in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the gag by the volume of moans and the loudness of the groans around the table," she says.

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

"The goal is for the joke to be a thing that unites the eight-year-old together with the grandparent," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Laughter

Coming together to enjoy shared amusement is not only ancient, experts argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with others at the holiday table you are dropping into what's very likely a truly ancient mammal play sound," says a neuroscience expert.

Communal amusement, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Researchers have found that a absence of these interactions can significantly damage mental and physical health.

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it leads to increased levels of endorphin uptake," the professor adds.

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

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish pun with a holiday cracker," she says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really vital task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you care about."

Which Occurs Inside the Mind?

But what is truly happening within the mind when we hear a gag?

An awful lot occurs in reaction to comedy, it transpires.

Employing brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which indicates which parts of the brain are more active, researchers have been able to chart the regions that get more blood flow.

The research entails scanning the brains of healthy subjects and then subjecting them to a database of funny phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we observed a very interesting pattern of neural activity," says the professor.

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the brain responsible for hearing and understanding speech, but also brain areas involved in both planning and starting motion and those linked to sight and memory.

Put all of this as a whole, and individuals listening to a pun have a sophisticated series of brain reactions that underpin the laughter we hear.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a funny phrase is paired with laughter there is a greater reaction in the brain than the identical word when followed 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 says.

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the laughter found at a Christmas table?

"You laugh more when you know people," she says, "and you laugh more when you like them or love them."

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

"It's the laughter. The gag is the dreadful holiday cracker joke, and it's just a pretext to chuckle as a group."

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Is it possible to find the perfect joke?

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

In 2001, a psychologist established a research project for the planet's funniest gag.

Over 40,000 jokes later, with scores lodged by 350,000 participants around the world, he has a clearer idea than most as to what works and what fails.

The ideal Christmas cracker pun must be short, he explains.

"But they also be poor jokes, jokes that cause us to groan," he adds.

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

"The reason is that if nobody finds it funny – it's the joke's fault, not yours.

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

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