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

This one-liner is greeted with moans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a company that makes supplies for gatherings. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

The firm's founder grins, nearly sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has made the cut and will feature in future crackers.

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

The key to a good holiday cracker pun is not the same as a stand-up joke per se. It is entirely about the context - in this instance, the shared amusement of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, kids and potentially neighbours.

"You want the joke to be something that unites the child together with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Of Shared Laughter

Gathering to experience shared amusement is not only ancient, experts argue, it is probably to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with people around the Christmas table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a really primordial mammal play vocalisation," says a professor.

Communal laughter, she says, aids in make and maintain social connections between individuals.

Researchers have discovered that a lack of such social exchanges can seriously damage mental and physical well-being.

"The people you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to increased levels of endorphin uptake," the professor adds.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as chuckling with friends 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 truly vital work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with the people you love."

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 turns out.

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to chart the areas that receive more blood.

Testing involves imaging the minds of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of funny phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we observed a really fascinating pattern of activation," says the neuroscientist.

A joke activates not just the areas of the mind responsible for hearing and interpreting language, but also brain areas associated with both planning and initiating motion and those linked to sight and memory.

Put these elements as a whole, and people hearing a pun have a sophisticated series of brain responses that underpin the laughter we hear.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

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

"This was in areas of the mind that you would employ to contort your face into a grin or a chuckle," the professor explains.

It indicates people are not just reacting to humorous words, they are reacting to the amusement that accompanies them.

Amusement, says the professor, can be infectious.

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

"People laugh harder when you are familiar with people," she says, "and you laugh further when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she says, the positive effect is more probable to be triggered not by the gag in itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Is it possible to discover the ultimate joke?

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

In 2001, a psychologist set up a scientific project for the planet's most humorous joke.

More than 40,000 jokes submitted, with ratings lodged by 350,000 people globally, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what works and what fails.

The ideal festive cracker joke needs to be brief, he explains.

"But they also need to be bad jokes, jokes that make us groan," he adds.

The increasingly "terrible" the joke, he says the better.

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the gag's fault, not your own.

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

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