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

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

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that produces products for gatherings. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

The firm's owner smiles, nearly sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has made the cut and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the number 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 same as a good joke per se. It is entirely about the context - in this instance, the shared laughter of the holiday meal with elders, kids and potentially neighbours.

"The goal is for the joke to be a thing that unites the child together with the grandparent," she adds.

The Science Of Communal Laughter

Gathering to experience communal laughter is not only nothing new, scientists argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others around the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's very likely a really primordial mammalian social vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

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

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

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," the professor adds.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in reaction to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a truly terrible festive cracker joke.

"You're not just laughing at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly important task of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you care about."

Which Occurs Inside the Mind?

But what is truly happening inside the brain when we listen to a gag?

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

Using brain scanning technology, a type of neural imager which indicates which parts of the brain are more active, researchers have been able to map the regions that get more blood.

The research entails scanning the minds of volunteer subjects and then exposing them to a collection of humorous words, paired with either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"During the study we got a really interesting activation pattern of activation," says the professor.

A joke activates not just the parts of the mind in charge of hearing and understanding language, but also brain areas associated with both planning and starting motion and those involved in vision and memory.

Combine all of this together, and people hearing a pun have a complex set of neural responses that underpin the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a humorous phrase is combined with chuckles there is a stronger response in the brain than the identical phrase when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in parts of the brain that you would use to move your expression into a grin or a laugh," the professor explains.

It means we are not just reacting to funny words, they are reacting to the laughter that accompanies them.

Laughter, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the laughter found around a holiday table?

"People laugh more when you know others," she notes, "and laughter increases more when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good effect is more likely to be caused not by the gag itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Quest for the Ideal Festive Pun

Will we ever discover the ultimate joke?

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

Years ago, a professor set up a scientific search for the world's funniest gag.

Over 40,000 jokes later, with ratings lodged by 350,000 participants globally, he has a better idea than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

The perfect festive cracker pun needs to be brief, he explains.

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

The increasingly "awful" the gag, he states the better.

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

"The fascinating part about the holiday cracker puns is that not one person find them humorous.

"That's a common moment around the table and I think it's lovely."