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

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

This describes a joke-testing session with a firm that makes products for social events. Its catalogue includes festive crackers.

The company's founder smiles, almost apologetically at the gag. But the pun has made the cut and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the gag by the number of groans and the intensity of the groans around the table," she says.

The key to a great holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a good gag in itself. It is all about the setting - in this case, the shared laughter of the holiday dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially neighbours.

"The goal is for the gag to be a thing that brings the child in harmony with the grandparent," she adds.

The Neuroscience Behind Shared Amusement

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

"Therefore when you are laughing with people around the Christmas dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really ancient mammal social sound," explains a professor.

Communal laughter, she explains, aids in make and maintain social connections between individuals.

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

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it results in enhanced levels of endorphin uptake," she adds.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a particularly terrible Christmas cracker gag.

"You're not just chuckling at a foolish joke with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly vital task of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you care about."

Which Happens Inside the Brain?

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

An awful lot happens in response to humour, it turns out.

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of brain scanner which shows which parts of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood.

Testing entails imaging the minds of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

"During the study we got a really fascinating activation pattern of activation," says the professor.

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the mind in charge of hearing and understanding language, but also brain regions associated with both planning and initiating motion and those involved in vision and recall.

Combine all of this together, and people listening to a pun have a complex set of neural reactions that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

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

"This was in parts of the brain that you would use to move your expression into a smile or a chuckle," the professor says.

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

Amusement, says the professor, can be contagious.

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

"You laugh more when you know others," she says, "and you laugh further when you like them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good factor is more likely to be caused not by the gag in itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Quest for the Ideal Festive Pun

Will we ever discover the perfect joke?

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

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

Over tens of thousands of gags later, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of people globally, he has a better understanding than many as to what works and what fails.

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

"They must also be bad gags, jokes that make us groan," he adds.

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

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

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

"It creates a common experience at the table and I think it's wonderful."