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

This joke is met by groans that resonate through a storage facility in London.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that produces products for social events. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

The company's owner smiles, almost apologetically at the gag. But the pun has made the cut and will feature in future crackers.

"You measure the gag by the number of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

The secret to a good holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a good gag per se. It is all about the context - in this case, the communal amusement of the Christmas meal with grandparents, kids and possibly neighbours.

"You want the gag to be a thing that brings the eight-year-old in harmony with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Shared Laughter

Gathering to experience shared laughter is not only nothing new, experts say, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"So when you are chuckling with people around the holiday table you are dropping into what's very likely a truly ancient mammalian play vocalisation," explains a professor.

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

Scientists have found that a lack of these social exchanges can seriously harm both psychological and bodily health.

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

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a truly awful festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," she says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really important work of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you love."

Which Occurs In the Brain?

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

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of brain scanner which shows which areas of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to map the regions that receive more blood.

The research entails imaging the minds of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded laughter.

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

A joke stimulates not just the parts of the brain responsible for auditory processing and interpreting language, but also brain areas associated with both planning and starting motion and those involved in sight and memory.

Combine these elements as a whole, and people listening to a pun have a complex series of neural reactions that support the laughter we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a humorous phrase is paired with chuckles there is a stronger 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 expression into a smile or a laugh," she explains.

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

Amusement, says the expert, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the laughter heard at a Christmas gathering?

"You laugh harder when you know others," she notes, "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 triggered not by the gag itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Quest for the Ideal Festive Pun

Will we ever discover the ultimate 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 gag.

Over 40,000 gags submitted, with ratings provided 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 needs to be brief, he says.

"But they also need to be poor gags, puns that make us groan," he adds.

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

"The reason is that if nobody finds it funny – it's the joke's fault, not your own.

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

"That's a shared experience at the gathering and I think it's wonderful."