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"What was the price did Father Christmas's sleigh cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This joke is greeted with groans that echo through a warehouse in London.

We're at a joke-testing session with a firm that makes products for social events. Its catalogue features Christmas crackers.

The firm's founder grins, almost apologetically at the gag. But the joke has been selected and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the gag by the volume of groans and the loudness of the groans around the table," she explains.

The secret to a good Christmas cracker pun is not the same as a stand-up gag per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the communal amusement of the holiday meal with grandparents, children and possibly neighbours.

"The goal is for the joke to be something that brings the eight-year-old together with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Science Behind Shared Laughter

Coming together to enjoy shared laughter is not only nothing new, scientists say, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people around the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really primordial mammal play sound," explains a professor.

Communal amusement, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between individuals.

Scientists have found that a absence of such interactions can seriously harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it leads to enhanced amounts of endorphin release," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in response to pleasurable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a particularly terrible festive cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," she says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly vital work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with the people you care about."

What Occurs Inside the Mind?

But what is actually taking place within the mind when we listen to a gag?

An awful lot occurs in reaction to comedy, it turns out.

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of neural imager which indicates which parts of the brain are working harder, researchers have been able to chart the regions that get more blood flow.

Testing entails scanning the brains of volunteer subjects and then exposing them to a database of funny phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we observed a very interesting activation pattern of neural activity," notes the professor.

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

Put these elements as a whole, and individuals listening to a joke have a sophisticated series of neural responses that underpin the amusement we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a humorous phrase is combined with laughter there is a greater reaction in the mind than the same phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would use to move your expression into a grin or a laugh," she says.

It indicates people are not just reacting to funny jokes, they are reacting to the laughter that accompanies them.

Laughter, says the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the laughter heard at a holiday gathering?

"People laugh more when you know others," she says, "and you laugh more when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she says, the positive factor is more likely to be triggered not by the gag itself, but from the response to it.

"It's the laughter. The gag is the terrible Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to chuckle as a group."

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the ultimate joke?

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

In 2001, a professor established a scientific project for the planet's funniest joke.

Over tens of thousands of gags submitted, with ratings provided by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a clearer understanding than many as to what works and what does not.

The ideal Christmas cracker pun needs to be short, he says.

"They must also be bad gags, jokes that make us moan," he continues.

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

"This is because if nobody finds it funny – it's the joke's shortcoming, not yours.

"What's interesting about the Christmas cracker puns is that none of us considers them humorous.

"That's a common moment around the gathering and I think it's wonderful."