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"How much did Santa's sled cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This one-liner is met by moans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation session with a firm that produces products for social events. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

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

"You measure the joke by the volume of moans and the loudness of the groans around the table," the founder explains.

The key to a great holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up joke per se. It is all about the setting - in this instance, the communal laughter of the Christmas dinner table with elders, kids and possibly neighbours.

"The goal is for the gag to be a thing that brings the child in harmony with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Behind Shared Laughter

Gathering to experience communal laughter is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are laughing with others around the holiday dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a truly primordial mammal social vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Communal amusement, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between people.

Scientists have found that a absence of such interactions can significantly damage mental and physical well-being.

"The people you converse with, and share laughter with, it leads to increased levels of 'happy chemical' release," she continues.

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

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly important task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you love."

What Occurs In the Brain?

But what is actually happening within the mind when we hear a gag?

An awful lot occurs in response to comedy, it turns out.

Employing brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the brain are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the regions that get more blood flow.

The research entails imaging the brains of healthy subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

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

A joke activates not just the areas of the brain in charge of hearing and interpreting language, but also neural regions associated with both planning and initiating movement and those linked to sight and recall.

Combine these elements together, and people hearing a pun have a sophisticated series of brain reactions that underpin the amusement we experience.

The Contagious Power of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a funny phrase is combined with laughter there is a stronger response in the mind than the identical word when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would employ to contort your expression into a smile or a laugh," she explains.

It indicates people are not just responding to funny jokes, they are responding to the laughter that accompanies them.

Amusement, according to the expert, can be contagious.

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

"People laugh harder when you know people," she says, "and laughter increases further when you like them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she explains, the feel-good factor is more likely to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

"It's the laughter. The joke is the terrible holiday cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to chuckle as a group."

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Is it possible to find the perfect gag?

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

Years ago, a professor set up a research search for the world's most humorous joke.

Over 40,000 jokes later, with ratings provided by hundreds of thousands of people globally, he has a better understanding than many as to what succeeds and what does not.

The ideal festive cracker joke must be brief, he says.

"They must also need to be poor jokes, jokes that cause us to moan," he continues.

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

"The reason is that if nobody laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not yours.

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

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