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

This one-liner is greeted with moans that echo through a storage facility in London.

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

The firm's founder grins, almost apologetically at the gag. But the pun has made the cut and will appear in future crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the volume of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," she says.

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

"You want the gag to be a thing that unites the child together with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Science Behind Shared Laughter

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

"So when you are laughing with people at the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's very likely a truly primordial mammalian social sound," explains a neuroscience expert.

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

Researchers have found that a lack of such interactions can seriously harm mental and physical health.

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it results in increased levels of 'happy chemical' release," she continues.

Endorphins are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as chuckling with loved ones over a truly awful festive cracker joke.

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are actually performing a lot of the truly important task of making, maintaining the connections you have with the people you love."

What Occurs Inside the Brain?

But what is truly taking place inside the mind when we hear a joke?

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

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which shows which areas of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to chart the areas that receive more blood flow.

Testing involves imaging the brains of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of funny words, paired with either a neutral sound, or recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a really interesting pattern of activation," says the neuroscientist.

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the mind responsible for auditory processing and interpreting speech, but also neural regions associated with both planning and starting movement and those linked to vision and memory.

Put all of this together, and individuals hearing a pun have a sophisticated set of neural reactions that support the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a humorous word is combined with chuckles there is a stronger 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 employ to contort your expression into a grin or a laugh," she says.

It indicates people are not just reacting to humorous words, they are reacting to the amusement that accompanies them.

Laughter, says the expert, can be contagious.

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

"You laugh more when you know others," she says, "and laughter increases more when you are fond of them or love them."

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

"The laughter is key. The gag is the dreadful holiday cracker joke, and it's just a reason to chuckle together."

The Search for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the perfect gag?

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

Years ago, a psychologist established a scientific search for the world's funniest gag.

More than tens of thousands of jokes later, with scores lodged by 350,000 participants globally, he has a clearer understanding than many as to what succeeds and what does not.

The perfect Christmas cracker pun must be brief, he explains.

"But they also need to be bad gags, jokes that make us groan," he continues.

The more "terrible" the joke, he states 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 funny.

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