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

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

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that makes supplies for social events. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

The firm's owner grins, almost apologetically at the gag. But the pun has been selected and will feature in future crackers.

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

The secret to a great holiday cracker joke is not the same as a stand-up joke per se. It is all about the context - in this case, the shared amusement of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially neighbours.

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

The Neuroscience Of Shared Laughter

Coming together to experience shared amusement is not only ancient, scientists say, it is probably to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people around the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really ancient mammal play vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

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

Researchers have discovered that a lack of such interactions can seriously harm mental and physical well-being.

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

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

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," she says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the truly vital work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with the people you care about."

What Occurs Inside the Brain?

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

A tremendous amount occurs in reaction to humour, it transpires.

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the brain are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the areas that receive more blood flow.

The research entails scanning the minds of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, paired with either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we observed a really fascinating activation pattern of neural activity," says the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the areas of the brain responsible for auditory processing and understanding language, but also brain areas associated with both planning and initiating movement and those linked to vision and memory.

Combine these elements as a whole, and people listening to a pun have a complex series of brain reactions that underpin the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Power of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a funny word is paired with laughter there is a greater response in the brain than the same word when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This was in areas of the brain that you would employ to move your expression into a smile or a chuckle," she says.

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

Laughter, says the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the laughter found around a holiday gathering?

"People laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she says, "and laughter increases more when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she says, the feel-good effect is more probable to be caused not by the joke in 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 chuckle together."

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the ultimate gag?

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

In 2001, a professor set up a research search for the planet's funniest gag.

Over tens of thousands of jokes submitted, with scores lodged by 350,000 participants around the world, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what works and what does not.

The ideal festive cracker pun must be short, he says.

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

The increasingly "terrible" the joke, he says the more effective.

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not your own.

"What's interesting about the holiday cracker jokes is that none of us find them humorous.

"That's a common experience around the table and I believe it's lovely."