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Is there an experience in a human being's lifetime quite like pulling a Christmas cracker?
The suspense, the anticipation, the build-up, the adrenaline coursing through our bodies while our hearts pound in our chests... followed by the crushing disappointment and humiliation as we sit on a dining chair that doesn't match the table, with a ruler, or bottle opener, or dice; a symbol of our misery.
But then, fluttering in the air just inches in front of our face, we see it; a white slip of paper, a lifeline, to save us from our abstract mediocrity.
A joke, or a limerick of some kind, sometimes Christmas themed and sometimes not, something to kick-start our hearts once more and get the blood pumping through our veins and flushing into our cheeks.
Something to make us feel again.
Yes, the Christmas cracker joke has been a festive tradition in practically every household in the country for generations, and we wager it'll continue to be until the very end of time.
They can be a bit naff though, the jokes, can't they? So we've scoured the earth to round up 12 of the smartest, most high-brow jokes we could find.
The kind of jokes that you'd likely find in Neil deGrasse Tyson or Noam Chomsky's crackers.
OK, so the Christmas link is a little tenuous - or not even there - for some of them. But they're still cracker-esque.
Whatever, go drink some sherry.
1.
The Higgs boson particle walks into a church on Christmas Eve. The priest says, "We don't allow Higgs bosons in here."
The Higgs boson says, "But without me how can you have Midnight Mass?"
2.
Knock, knock.
Who's there?
To.
To who?
No, to whom.
3.
Helium walks into a bar. The bartender says, "We don't serve noble gases in here."
Helium doesn't react.
4.
What's a mathematician's favourite Christmas snack?
A mince π.
5.
Yo momma's so classless she could be a Marxist utopia.
6.
Do you hear about the snowman who got cooled to absolute zero?
He's 0K now.
7.
What did the scientist say when he found two isotopes of helium?
HeHe.
8.
A Buddhist monk approaches a burger stall and says:
Make me one with everything.
The Buddhist monk pays with a £20, which the vendor takes and puts in his till.
The monk asks:
Where's my change?
The vendor replies:
Change comes from within.
9.
The other day my friend was telling me that I didn't understand what irony meant.
...which is ironic, because we were standing next to a Christmas tree.
10.
A French cat, Un Deux Trois, and an English cat, One Two Three, went for a swimming race around a lake. Who one?
One Two Three, because Un Deux Trois Quatre Cinque.
(Credit goes to Jo Brand for this one, don't @ us.)
11.
What do you call Santa's little helpers?
Subordinate clauses.
12.
What do you get when you cross a joke and a rhetorical question?
More: Twelve Christmas jokes that are better than cracker ones.
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