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

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

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a company that makes supplies for gatherings. Its catalogue features Christmas crackers.

The firm's founder grins, almost sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has been selected and will feature in upcoming crackers.

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

The secret to a great holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a good gag per se. It is entirely about the context - in this case, the shared laughter of the holiday meal with elders, kids and possibly friends.

"You want the joke to be a thing that unites the eight-year-old in harmony with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Of Communal Amusement

Gathering to experience communal amusement is not only ancient, experts say, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are laughing with others at the Christmas table you are engaging in what's very likely a really ancient mammalian social vocalisation," says a professor.

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

Researchers have discovered that a absence of such interactions can significantly damage both psychological and bodily health.

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it results in increased amounts of endorphin uptake," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as chuckling with loved ones over a particularly terrible festive cracker joke.

"It's not simply laughing at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the truly important task of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you care about."

Which Occurs Inside the Brain?

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

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

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which shows which areas of the brain are working harder, researchers have been able to chart the regions that get more blood flow.

Testing involves imaging the brains of healthy subjects and then subjecting them to a database of funny phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or recorded laughter.

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

A gag activates not just the areas of the mind in charge of hearing and understanding speech, but also brain regions involved in both preparation and starting motion and those involved in vision and recall.

Combine these elements as a whole, and individuals listening to a joke have a sophisticated set of neural reactions that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a funny word is combined with laughter there is a greater reaction in the brain than the identical word when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the brain that you would use to contort your face into a smile or a laugh," she says.

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

Amusement, says the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles found at a Christmas table?

"People laugh harder when you are familiar with people," she notes, "and laughter increases more when you like them or care for them."

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

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

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Is it possible to find the ultimate joke?

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

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

Over tens of thousands of gags submitted, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of people globally, he has a clearer idea than most as to what works and what does not.

The perfect Christmas cracker joke must be brief, he says.

"They must also be poor gags, jokes that make us groan," he continues.

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

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

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

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