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

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

We're at a joke-testing session with a company that produces products for social events. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

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

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

The secret to a good holiday cracker pun is not the same as a good joke per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the communal laughter of the holiday meal with grandparents, kids and potentially neighbours.

"The goal is for the gag to be a thing that brings the child in harmony with the grandparent," she adds.

The Science Of Communal Amusement

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

"So when you are laughing with others around the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's very likely a really ancient mammalian play vocalisation," explains a professor.

Shared laughter, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Researchers have found that a absence of these social exchanges can seriously harm mental and physical well-being.

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it results in enhanced amounts of endorphin uptake," she adds.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as chuckling with friends over a truly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," she says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly important work of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you care about."

What Occurs Inside the Mind?

But what is actually happening within the brain when we listen to a gag?

A tremendous amount happens in reaction to comedy, it turns out.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of brain scanner which indicates which parts of the brain are more active, scientists have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood.

Testing entails imaging the minds of volunteer participants and then exposing them to a database of funny words, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

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

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the mind in charge of hearing and interpreting language, but also neural areas associated with both preparation and starting motion and those linked to vision and memory.

Combine all of this as a whole, and people listening to a pun have a sophisticated series of neural responses that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a humorous word is paired with chuckles there is a stronger reaction in the brain than the identical phrase when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the brain that you would employ to move your face into a grin or a laugh," she explains.

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be contagious.

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

"People laugh more when you are familiar with others," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you like them or care for them."

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

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

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever discover the ultimate gag?

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

In 2001, a professor established a scientific project for the world's funniest gag.

More than 40,000 gags submitted, with scores provided by 350,000 participants around the world, he has a better understanding than most as to what works and what fails.

The ideal festive cracker pun needs to be short, he explains.

"But they also need to be poor gags, jokes that cause us to moan," he adds.

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

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

"The fascinating part about the Christmas cracker jokes is that not one person considers them humorous.

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