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"How much did Father Christmas's sled cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This quip is met by moans that resonate through a storage facility in the capital.

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a firm that produces products for social events. Its catalogue features Christmas crackers.

The company's founder grins, nearly apologetically at the joke. But the joke has been selected and will feature in future crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the volume of moans and the intensity of the groans at the table," she says.

The secret to a good holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a good gag in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the shared amusement of the holiday dinner table with elders, children and possibly neighbours.

"The goal is for the gag to be something that unites the child in harmony with the grandparent," she states.

The Neuroscience Behind Shared Laughter

Coming together to enjoy shared amusement is not only ancient, scientists say, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others at the Christmas table you are engaging in what's very likely a truly ancient mammal social sound," says a professor.

Shared laughter, she says, helps make and maintain social connections between people.

Scientists have discovered that a lack of such social exchanges can seriously harm mental and physical health.

"The people you converse with, and laugh with, it results in increased levels of endorphin uptake," she adds.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are released both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with friends over a truly awful festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply laughing at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly important work of making, maintaining the connections you have with the people you love."

Which Occurs Inside the Brain?

But what is actually happening inside the mind when we hear a gag?

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of brain scanner which indicates which parts of the brain are more active, scientists have been able to map the regions that get more blood flow.

Testing entails imaging the brains of volunteer subjects and then exposing them to a database of humorous phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we got a really interesting pattern of activation," notes the professor.

A gag activates not just the parts of the mind responsible for hearing and understanding speech, but also brain regions associated with both preparation and initiating movement and those linked to vision and memory.

Combine these elements as a whole, and individuals listening to a joke have a complex set of neural responses that support the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

Scientists found that when a funny phrase is paired with chuckles there is a greater response in the brain than the identical word when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the brain that you would employ to move your expression into a smile or a laugh," the professor explains.

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

Amusement, says the expert, can be contagious.

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

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she says, "and laughter increases further when you are fond of them or love them."

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

"It's the laughter. The gag is the dreadful Christmas cracker joke, and it's just a pretext to chuckle together."

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the perfect joke?

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

In 2001, a psychologist set up a research search for the world's funniest joke.

More than tens of thousands of gags later, with scores provided by 350,000 participants globally, he has a better idea than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

The ideal Christmas cracker joke needs to be short, he explains.

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

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

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not yours.

"What's interesting about the holiday cracker jokes is that none of us find them humorous.

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