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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 moans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that makes supplies for gatherings. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

The firm's founder grins, almost apologetically at the joke. But the joke has made the cut and will feature in upcoming crackers.

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

The secret to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up joke per se. It is all about the context - in this instance, the shared laughter of the Christmas meal with elders, children and possibly neighbours.

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

The Science Of Shared Laughter

Gathering to experience shared amusement is not only nothing new, experts say, it is likely to be pre-human.

"So when you are chuckling with people around the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammalian play sound," explains a professor.

Shared laughter, she says, aids in make and maintain social bonds between individuals.

Researchers have discovered that a absence of such social exchanges can significantly damage both psychological and bodily well-being.

"Those you talk to, and share laughter with, it results in increased amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," she continues.

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly awful festive cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a foolish joke with a holiday cracker," she states. "You are actually doing a lot of the really vital task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with the people you love."

What Occurs Inside the Brain?

But what is truly happening inside the brain when we hear a joke?

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

Using brain scanning technology, a kind of neural imager which indicates which parts of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the areas that get more blood.

The research entails scanning the brains of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a database of humorous words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we got a really fascinating pattern of neural activity," says the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the brain responsible for auditory processing and interpreting speech, but also brain regions associated with both preparation and initiating motion and those linked to vision and recall.

Combine these elements as a whole, and individuals listening to a joke have a complex series of brain responses that underpin the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Nature of Laughter

Scientists discovered that when a humorous word is paired with chuckles there is a greater response in the mind than the identical word when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in parts of the mind that you would use to contort your face into a grin or a laugh," she explains.

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

Amusement, says the expert, can be contagious.

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

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she says, "and you laugh further when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she explains, the feel-good factor is more probable to be caused not by the joke in itself, but from the reaction to it.

"The laughter is key. The joke is the dreadful Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a reason to laugh together."

The Quest for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever discover the ultimate joke?

Likely not, but that has not stopped experts from trying to.

Years ago, a professor set up a scientific search for the planet's most humorous gag.

More than tens of thousands of gags later, with scores provided by 350,000 participants around the world, he has a clearer idea than many as to what works and what does not.

The ideal Christmas cracker pun needs to be brief, he explains.

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

The more "awful" the joke, he states the more effective.

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

"What's interesting about the Christmas cracker puns is that not one person find them humorous.

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