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

This quip is greeted with moans that resonate through a warehouse in London.

This describes a humor-evaluation session with a company that makes products for social events. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

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

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

The key to a great holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up gag per se. It is all about the setting - in this case, the communal laughter of the holiday meal with grandparents, kids and possibly neighbours.

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

The Science Of Shared Laughter

Gathering to experience shared amusement is not only ancient, experts argue, it is probably to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with people around the holiday dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a really primordial mammal social sound," says a professor.

Communal amusement, she explains, helps forge and strengthen social connections between people.

Scientists have discovered that a absence of such social exchanges can significantly harm both psychological and bodily health.

"The people you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to increased amounts of endorphin 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 pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a truly terrible festive cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really vital work of building, preserving the social bonds you have with the people you care about."

What Happens In the Brain?

But what is truly taking place within the brain when we hear a gag?

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

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

The research entails imaging the brains of healthy participants and then exposing them to a collection of funny words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

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

A gag activates not just the parts of the brain in charge of hearing and interpreting language, but also brain areas associated with both preparation and starting movement and those linked to vision and memory.

Combine all of this together, and people hearing a pun have a complex set of brain responses that support the laughter we experience.

The Infectious Power of Laughter

Researchers found that when a humorous phrase is combined with chuckles there is a greater response in the mind than the identical word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would employ to contort your face into a smile or a chuckle," the professor says.

It means we are not just responding to humorous words, they are reacting to the laughter that follows them.

Laughter, says the professor, can be infectious.

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

"You laugh more when you know others," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she explains, the positive factor is more probable to be triggered not by the gag in itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Search for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the ultimate joke?

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

Years ago, a psychologist established a research search for the planet's most humorous gag.

Over tens of thousands of jokes submitted, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a clearer idea than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

The perfect festive cracker joke must be brief, he explains.

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

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

"The reason is that if no-one laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not yours.

"What's interesting about the Christmas cracker puns is that none of us find them funny.

"It creates a shared moment at the gathering and I think it's lovely."