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

This one-liner is greeted with groans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a firm that makes supplies for social events. Its catalogue includes festive crackers.

The firm's owner grins, nearly apologetically at the joke. But the pun has made the cut and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"You measure the joke by the number of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," she explains.

The key to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the same as a stand-up joke in itself. It is all about the context - in this instance, the communal amusement of the Christmas meal with grandparents, kids and possibly neighbours.

"The goal is for the gag to be a thing that brings the eight-year-old together with the grandparent," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Shared Amusement

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

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others around the holiday table you are dropping into what's very likely a truly primordial mammal play vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Communal amusement, she explains, helps forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Researchers have discovered that a absence of these interactions can significantly harm mental and physical well-being.

"The people you converse with, and share laughter with, it results in increased amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," the professor adds.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to reduce tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a truly awful festive cracker gag.

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

What Happens In the Mind?

But what is actually happening inside the mind when we listen to a joke?

A tremendous amount occurs in response to humour, it turns out.

Using brain scanning technology, a type of neural imager which indicates which parts of the brain are more active, scientists have been able to map the regions that receive more blood.

The research entails imaging the brains of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a database of humorous phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or recorded laughter.

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

A joke activates not just the areas of the mind responsible for hearing and understanding speech, but also neural areas involved in both planning and initiating motion and those linked to sight and memory.

Put these elements as a whole, and people hearing a joke have a complex series of brain responses that support the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a humorous phrase is combined with laughter there is a greater reaction in the brain than the same word when accompanied by a neutral sound.

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

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

Amusement, according to the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles heard around a Christmas gathering?

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

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

"It's the laughter. The gag is the dreadful holiday cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to chuckle together."

The Search for the Ideal Festive Pun

Will we ever find the ultimate gag?

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

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

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

The perfect Christmas cracker pun must be short, he says.

"They must also be poor jokes, jokes that cause us to groan," he adds.

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

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not yours.

"The fascinating part about the holiday cracker puns is that not one person find them funny.

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