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

This quip is greeted with moans that echo through a warehouse in the capital.

We're at a joke-testing meeting with a company that makes supplies for gatherings. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

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

"The success is gauged by the joke by the volume of moans and the intensity of the groans around the table," the founder explains.

The secret to a great holiday cracker pun is not the same as a good gag per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the shared laughter of the holiday meal with elders, kids and potentially friends.

"The goal is for the joke to be something that unites the eight-year-old in harmony with the grandparent," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Shared Amusement

Coming together to enjoy shared laughter is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"So when you are laughing with others at the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's almost certainly a truly ancient mammalian play sound," says a professor.

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

Scientists have discovered that a absence of these social exchanges can significantly damage both psychological and bodily well-being.

"The people you converse with, and share laughter with, it results in increased levels of 'happy chemical' uptake," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly terrible festive cracker joke.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are actually performing a lot of the really important task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you care about."

What Occurs Inside the Mind?

But what is truly happening inside the brain when we hear a gag?

An awful lot happens in reaction to humour, it transpires.

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

Testing involves imaging the brains of healthy subjects and then exposing them to a collection of humorous words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we observed a very fascinating pattern of neural activity," notes the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the areas of the brain responsible for hearing and interpreting language, but also neural areas associated with both planning and initiating movement and those involved in sight and memory.

Put all of this together, and people listening to a joke have a sophisticated set of neural reactions that support the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Laughter

Scientists found that when a humorous phrase is combined with chuckles there is a stronger reaction in the brain than the identical word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This was in parts of the mind that you would use to contort your face into a grin or a laugh," the professor says.

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

Laughter, according to the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles heard at a Christmas gathering?

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with people," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she explains, the positive factor is more probable to be caused not by the joke in itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Is it possible to find the ultimate gag?

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

Years ago, a professor established a scientific project for the planet's funniest joke.

Over tens of thousands of jokes later, with ratings provided by 350,000 participants globally, he has a clearer understanding than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

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

"But they also need to be poor gags, jokes that cause us to groan," he continues.

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

"This is because if no-one finds it funny – it's the gag's shortcoming, not your own.

"What's interesting about the holiday cracker jokes is that not one person find them humorous.

"It creates a common experience at the gathering and I think it's lovely."