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

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

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a company that makes products for gatherings. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

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

"The success is gauged by the gag by the volume of moans and the intensity of the groans at the table," she explains.

The secret to a good holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up gag in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the communal amusement of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially friends.

"You want the joke to be something that unites the eight-year-old in harmony with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Behind Shared Amusement

Gathering to experience shared amusement is not only nothing new, scientists say, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"So when you are chuckling with others around the holiday table you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really ancient mammal social sound," explains a professor.

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

Researchers have found that a absence of these social exchanges can significantly harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

"Those you talk to, and share laughter with, it results in enhanced levels of 'happy chemical' uptake," the professor adds.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as chuckling with loved ones over a particularly terrible Christmas cracker gag.

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish pun with a Christmas cracker," she states. "You are actually doing a lot of the really important work of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you love."

What Occurs Inside the Brain?

But what is truly happening within the brain when we listen to a joke?

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

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of brain scanner which shows which parts of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to chart the regions that get more blood flow.

The research involves scanning the minds of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a database of humorous phrases, paired with either a neutral sound, or recorded chuckles.

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

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the brain responsible for auditory processing and understanding speech, but also neural regions involved in both preparation and starting motion and those involved in vision and recall.

Put these elements together, and people hearing a pun have a sophisticated set of neural reactions that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a humorous phrase is combined with chuckles there is a stronger response in the mind than the same phrase when followed by a neutral sound.

"This was in areas of the mind that you would use to move your face into a smile or a laugh," the professor says.

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

Laughter, according to the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the laughter found at a Christmas gathering?

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

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she explains, the positive factor is more probable to be triggered not by the joke itself, but from the reaction to it.

"The laughter is key. The joke is the terrible Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to laugh as a group."

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the perfect joke?

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

Years ago, a psychologist established a research project for the world's funniest joke.

More than tens of thousands of gags later, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, 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 explains.

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

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

"This is because if nobody finds it funny – it's the gag's fault, not yours.

"The fascinating part about the Christmas cracker jokes is that none of us considers them humorous.

"It creates a common moment at the table and I think it's lovely."