🔗 Share this article

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

This joke is met by groans that resonate through a storage facility in the capital.

This describes a joke-testing session with a company that makes products for social events. Its repertoire includes festive crackers.

The firm's owner smiles, almost sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has been selected and will feature in future crackers.

"You measure the gag by the number of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," the founder says.

The key to a good holiday cracker joke is not the same as a good gag per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the shared amusement of the holiday meal with grandparents, children and potentially friends.

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

The Neuroscience Of Communal Amusement

Coming together to enjoy shared laughter is not only ancient, experts argue, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"So when you are laughing with people around the Christmas table you are dropping into what's very likely a really primordial mammal social vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Shared amusement, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between people.

Researchers have discovered that a absence of such interactions can significantly damage both psychological and bodily health.

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it leads to increased levels of 'happy chemical' uptake," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with friends over a particularly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish joke with a Christmas cracker," she says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the truly important work of building, preserving the social bonds you have with the people you care about."

What Occurs In the Brain?

But what is actually happening within the mind when we listen to a joke?

An awful lot happens in response to humour, it turns out.

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

The research involves scanning the brains of healthy participants and then exposing them to a collection of humorous words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a really fascinating pattern of activation," says the neuroscientist.

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the brain responsible for hearing and interpreting speech, but also neural areas involved in both planning and starting movement and those linked to sight and memory.

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

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a funny phrase is paired with chuckles there is a stronger response in the mind than the same word when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in areas of the mind that you would use to move your face into a grin or a laugh," she explains.

It indicates we are not just reacting to funny words, they are responding to the amusement that follows them.

Amusement, according to the professor, can be contagious.

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

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

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

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

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the ultimate joke?

Likely not, but that has not prevented researchers from attempting to.

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

Over 40,000 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 ideal Christmas cracker joke needs to be brief, he explains.

"They must also need to be poor gags, puns that make us moan," he adds.

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

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

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

"It creates a shared experience around the gathering and I believe it's wonderful."