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"How much did Father Christmas's sleigh cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This quip is greeted with groans that resonate through a storage facility in the capital.

This describes a joke-testing session with a firm that makes supplies for gatherings. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

The company's founder smiles, almost apologetically at the gag. But the joke has been selected and will feature in future crackers.

"You measure the gag by the number of moans and the loudness of the groans around the table," she explains.

The secret to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a good joke in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the communal amusement of the holiday meal with grandparents, children and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the gag to be something that unites the child in harmony with the grandparent," she states.

The Neuroscience Behind Communal Amusement

Gathering to enjoy communal amusement is not only ancient, scientists argue, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"So when you are laughing with others at the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's very likely a really ancient mammalian play sound," explains a neuroscience expert.

Communal amusement, she says, aids in make and maintain social bonds between people.

Scientists have discovered that a absence of such social exchanges can significantly damage both psychological and bodily health.

"The people you talk to, and share laughter with, it results in increased levels of endorphin release," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a truly terrible festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply chuckling at a foolish pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really vital work of building, preserving the connections you have with those you care about."

What Occurs Inside the Brain?

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

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

Using brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the brain are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood flow.

The research entails imaging the brains of volunteer subjects and then exposing them to a database of funny words, paired with either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we observed a really interesting activation pattern of neural activity," notes the professor.

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the mind in charge of hearing and understanding language, but also neural areas associated with both planning and starting motion and those linked to vision and memory.

Combine these elements as a whole, and people hearing a pun have a sophisticated series of neural responses that underpin the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a funny phrase is paired with chuckles there is a greater response in the brain than the same phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the brain that you would employ to move your face into a smile or a chuckle," she explains.

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be infectious.

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

"People laugh more when you know others," she notes, "and laughter increases further 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 itself, but from the response to it.

"It's the laughter. The joke 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 stopped researchers from trying to.

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

Over tens of thousands of gags later, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, he has a better understanding than most as to what works and what does not.

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

"They must also be bad jokes, puns that make us moan," he adds.

The increasingly "terrible" the gag, he states the better.

"The reason is that if no-one laughs – it's the joke's shortcoming, not your own.

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

"It creates a shared moment around the table and I believe it's lovely."