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

This quip is met by moans that resonate through a storage facility in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that produces supplies for gatherings. Its repertoire includes festive crackers.

The company's founder grins, nearly apologetically at the joke. But the pun has been selected and will appear in upcoming crackers.

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

The key to a great holiday cracker joke is not the same as a good gag in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the communal amusement of the Christmas dinner table with elders, children and potentially neighbours.

"The goal is for the gag to be a thing that brings the eight-year-old in harmony with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Science Behind Communal Amusement

Gathering to enjoy communal laughter is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with people around the holiday table you are dropping into what's very likely a really ancient mammal social vocalisation," explains a professor.

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

Researchers have discovered that a absence of such interactions can seriously damage both psychological and bodily well-being.

"The people you converse with, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' release," the professor adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to reduce tension and discomfort and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly terrible Christmas cracker gag.

"It's not simply laughing at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," she says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really vital task of making, maintaining the connections you have with the people you love."

What Occurs In the Mind?

But what is actually happening within the brain when we listen to a gag?

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which indicates which parts of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to map the regions that receive more blood flow.

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

"During the study we observed a very fascinating pattern of activation," says the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the areas of the brain responsible for hearing and interpreting speech, but also neural regions associated with both planning and starting motion and those linked to sight and recall.

Combine these elements as a whole, and individuals listening to a joke have a sophisticated series of brain reactions that support the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Researchers found that when a humorous phrase is paired with laughter there is a stronger response in the mind than the identical word when followed by a neutral sound.

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

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

Laughter, according to the expert, can be contagious.

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

"People laugh more when you know people," she notes, "and you laugh further when you like them or love them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she explains, the feel-good factor is more likely to be triggered 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 pretext to laugh as a group."

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever discover the ultimate gag?

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

Years ago, a professor set up a research search for the planet's funniest joke.

More than 40,000 gags submitted, with ratings provided by 350,000 participants globally, he has a better understanding than many as to what succeeds and what does not.

The ideal Christmas cracker joke must be brief, he explains.

"They must also need to be bad jokes, puns that make us groan," he continues.

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

"This is because if nobody 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 humorous.

"It creates a shared experience around the gathering and I think it's wonderful."