🔗 Share this article

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

This quip is met by groans that resonate through a warehouse in London.

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a firm that makes supplies for gatherings. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

The company's owner grins, nearly apologetically at the joke. But the joke has been selected and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the gag by the volume of moans and the loudness of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

The key to a good holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up gag per se. It is all about the context - in this instance, the shared amusement of the Christmas meal with grandparents, kids and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the gag to be a thing that unites the child in harmony with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Laughter

Coming together to experience communal amusement is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are laughing with people at the Christmas table you are dropping into what's very likely a truly ancient mammal social sound," explains a neuroscience expert.

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

Researchers have found that a absence of these interactions can significantly harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it results in increased amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," the professor continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in response to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with friends over a particularly terrible festive cracker gag.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," she states. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly important task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you care about."

What Happens Inside the Mind?

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

A tremendous amount occurs in response to comedy, it transpires.

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

Testing entails scanning the brains of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, paired with either a neutral sound, or recorded chuckles.

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

A joke activates not just the parts of the brain responsible for hearing and interpreting language, but also brain regions involved in both planning and starting motion and those involved in sight and recall.

Put these elements as a whole, and people listening to a joke have a complex series of brain reactions that support the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Scientists discovered that when a funny phrase is paired with laughter there is a greater response in the mind than the same phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in areas of the brain that you would use to move your face into a smile or a laugh," she says.

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

Laughter, according to the expert, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles found around a Christmas gathering?

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with people," she notes, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she explains, the feel-good effect is more likely to be caused not by the gag in itself, but from the response to it.

"It's the laughter. The joke is the dreadful Christmas cracker joke, and it's just a reason to laugh as a group."

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Is it possible to find the perfect joke?

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

In 2001, a psychologist set up a scientific search for the world's funniest gag.

Over tens of thousands of gags submitted, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a better understanding than most as to what succeeds and what does not.

The ideal Christmas cracker joke must be brief, he says.

"They must also need to be bad jokes, puns that cause us to groan," he adds.

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

"The reason is that if no-one finds it funny – it's the joke's shortcoming, not yours.

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

"It creates a shared experience around the table and I believe it's lovely."