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

This quip is greeted with groans that echo through a storage facility in London.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that produces products for gatherings. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

The firm's owner smiles, almost sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has been selected and will appear in upcoming crackers.

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

The key to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the same as a good joke per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the shared amusement of the Christmas meal with grandparents, kids and possibly neighbours.

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

The Science Of Communal Amusement

Coming together to enjoy communal laughter is not only ancient, experts argue, it is probably to be older than humanity.

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

Communal laughter, she says, helps make and maintain social connections between individuals.

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

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it results in enhanced amounts of endorphin release," the professor 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 experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly terrible festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are actually performing a lot of the truly vital task of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you love."

What Occurs Inside the Brain?

But what is actually taking place inside the brain when we listen to a gag?

A tremendous amount happens in response to humour, it turns out.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which indicates which areas of the brain are more active, scientists have been able to chart the regions that get more blood.

The research involves scanning the brains of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a database of humorous words, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

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

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the mind in charge of auditory processing and interpreting language, but also brain areas involved in both preparation and initiating motion and those linked to vision and memory.

Combine all of this as a whole, and people hearing a pun have a complex set of neural responses that underpin the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Nature of Laughter

Researchers found that when a funny phrase is combined with chuckles there is a greater response in the mind than the identical word when followed by a neutral sound.

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

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

Amusement, says the professor, can be contagious.

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

"You laugh more when you are familiar with people," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you are fond of them or care for them."

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

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

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the perfect gag?

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

In 2001, a psychologist established a research search for the world's funniest joke.

More than 40,000 gags submitted, with scores provided by 350,000 participants around the world, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what succeeds and what does not.

The perfect Christmas cracker pun needs to be brief, he says.

"They must also be bad gags, puns that cause us to moan," he continues.

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

"The reason is that if nobody laughs – it's the gag's fault, not yours.

"The fascinating part about the holiday cracker jokes is that not one person considers them humorous.

"It creates a common experience around the gathering and I think it's lovely."