"What was the price did Father Christmas's sleigh cost? Zero, 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 session with a firm that makes products for gatherings. Its repertoire features festive crackers.
The firm's owner grins, almost apologetically at the gag. But the joke has made the cut and will appear in upcoming crackers.
"The success is gauged by the gag by the number of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," she explains.
The secret to a great holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up joke in itself. It is entirely about the context - in this case, the shared laughter of the holiday meal with grandparents, children and potentially friends.
"You want the gag to be a thing that unites the child together with the grandparent," she adds.
Gathering to enjoy shared amusement is not only ancient, experts say, it is probably to be pre-human.
"Therefore when you are laughing with people around the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really ancient mammalian social vocalisation," explains a professor.
Communal laughter, she says, helps forge and strengthen social connections between people.
Scientists have found that a lack of such social exchanges can significantly damage both psychological and bodily well-being.
"Those you talk to, and share laughter with, it results in increased amounts of endorphin uptake," she adds.
Endorphins are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable experiences, such as chuckling with loved ones over a truly awful Christmas cracker gag.
"You're not just laughing at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," she states. "You are actually performing a lot of the really important task of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you love."
But what is actually taking place within the brain when we hear a joke?
A tremendous amount happens in reaction to humour, it turns out.
Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of brain scanner which shows which areas of the brain are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the areas that receive more blood.
Testing involves imaging the brains of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a database of humorous words, paired with either a neutral sound, or recorded laughter.
"During the study we got a really fascinating pattern of activation," notes the neuroscientist.
A gag activates not just the areas of the brain in charge of hearing and understanding language, but also brain regions associated with both preparation and starting movement and those linked to sight and memory.
Put all of this together, and individuals hearing a pun have a sophisticated series of neural reactions that support the amusement we experience.
Scientists discovered that when a humorous word is combined with chuckles there is a greater reaction in the mind than the same word when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.
"This was in areas of the brain that you would employ to contort your expression into a smile or a chuckle," she says.
It indicates we are not just reacting to humorous jokes, they are reacting to the amusement that accompanies them.
Amusement, according to the expert, can be contagious.
So what does this imply for the laughter found at a Christmas table?
"You laugh harder when you know people," she says, "and laughter increases further when you are fond of them or love them."
When it comes to festive cracker puns, she says, the feel-good factor is more likely to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.
"The laughter is key. The joke is the dreadful Christmas cracker joke, and it's just a reason to chuckle as a group."
Will we ever find the ultimate joke?
Likely not, but that has not stopped experts from attempting to.
In 2001, a psychologist established a scientific project for the world's funniest gag.
More than tens of thousands of gags submitted, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what succeeds and what does not.
The perfect Christmas cracker joke needs to be short, he explains.
"They must also be poor jokes, jokes that make us moan," he continues.
The more "terrible" the joke, he states the more effective.
"The reason is that if nobody laughs – it's the joke's shortcoming, not your own.
"The fascinating part about the Christmas cracker jokes is that not one person find them humorous.
"It creates a common experience around the gathering and I believe it's wonderful."
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