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

This joke is met by moans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that makes products for gatherings. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

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

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

The key to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up gag in itself. It is all about the setting - in this instance, the shared amusement of the Christmas meal with grandparents, children and potentially neighbours.

"The goal is for the joke to be a thing that brings the child together with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Science Of Shared Amusement

Gathering to enjoy communal laughter is not only ancient, experts argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are laughing with people around the Christmas table you are engaging in what's very likely a really primordial mammalian social sound," explains a neuroscience expert.

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

Scientists have found that a absence of these interactions can seriously damage both psychological and bodily health.

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it results in enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' release," she adds.

These natural chemicals are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with friends over a particularly terrible festive cracker joke.

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish pun with a holiday cracker," she says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really vital task of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you care about."

What Occurs Inside the Mind?

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

An awful lot happens in response to humour, it transpires.

Using brain scanning technology, a type of neural imager which indicates which areas of the brain are working harder, researchers have been able to chart the regions that get more blood flow.

Testing involves imaging the brains of volunteer participants and then exposing them to a database of humorous words, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we observed a really fascinating pattern of activation," says the professor.

A gag activates not just the parts of the brain in charge of hearing and understanding speech, but also brain regions associated with both planning and initiating movement and those involved in sight and memory.

Combine all of this together, and people hearing a joke have a sophisticated series of brain reactions that support the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Power of Laughter

Scientists discovered that when a funny word is paired with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the brain than the same word when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

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

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

Amusement, according to the expert, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the laughter heard at a holiday gathering?

"People laugh harder when you know people," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she explains, the feel-good factor is more probable to be triggered not by the joke itself, but from the reaction to it.

"The laughter is key. The gag is the terrible Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a reason to laugh together."

The Quest for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever discover the ultimate joke?

Probably not, but that has not prevented experts from trying to.

In 2001, a psychologist set up a scientific project for the planet's funniest joke.

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

The ideal Christmas cracker pun needs to be short, he says.

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

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

"This is because if no-one finds it funny – it's the joke's shortcoming, not yours.

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

"It creates a common experience around the table and I think it's wonderful."