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

This quip is greeted with moans that echo through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation session with a firm that produces supplies for social events. Its catalogue features Christmas crackers.

The company's founder grins, nearly sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has made the cut and will appear in future crackers.

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

The key to a good holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a good joke per se. It is all about the setting - in this case, the shared laughter of the holiday meal with elders, children and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the joke to be something that unites the eight-year-old in harmony with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Behind Shared Amusement

Gathering to enjoy shared laughter is not only nothing new, scientists argue, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"So when you are laughing with people around the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really ancient mammal social vocalisation," says a neuroscience expert.

Communal amusement, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between people.

Researchers have found that a absence of such social exchanges can seriously damage mental and physical well-being.

"Those you converse with, and laugh with, it results in increased amounts of endorphin uptake," the professor continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with friends over a particularly terrible festive cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really important task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you love."

What Happens In the Mind?

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

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

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of neural imager which shows which areas of the brain are more active, scientists have been able to map the areas that get more blood flow.

The research entails scanning the minds of healthy participants and then exposing them to a collection of humorous phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we observed a really interesting pattern of activation," notes the professor.

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the mind responsible for hearing and understanding language, but also brain regions involved in both planning and starting movement and those linked to vision and recall.

Combine all of this as a whole, and individuals listening to a pun have a sophisticated series of neural reactions that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Researchers found that when a humorous phrase is paired with chuckles there is a greater response in the mind than the same phrase when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the mind that you would use to move your face into a grin or a chuckle," she says.

It means we are not just reacting to funny words, they are responding to the laughter that accompanies them.

Amusement, according to the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles found around a Christmas table?

"You laugh more when you are familiar with others," she says, "and you laugh further when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she says, the positive effect is more probable to be triggered not by the joke in itself, but from the reaction to it.

"It's the laughter. The gag is the terrible Christmas cracker joke, and it's just a pretext to chuckle as a group."

The Quest for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever discover the perfect joke?

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

In 2001, a professor set up a research search for the world's most humorous joke.

More than 40,000 gags submitted, with ratings lodged by 350,000 participants globally, he has a clearer idea than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

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

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

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

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

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

"It creates a common moment at the gathering and I believe it's wonderful."