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

This quip is met by groans that resonate through a storage facility in London.

We're at a joke-testing session with a firm that produces products for gatherings. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

The firm's founder grins, almost sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has been selected and will feature in future crackers.

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

The key to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the identical as a good joke in itself. It is entirely about the context - in this instance, the communal amusement of the holiday dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially friends.

"You want the gag to be a thing that unites the eight-year-old together with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Shared Laughter

Gathering to enjoy shared laughter is not only ancient, experts say, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others around the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's very likely a truly ancient mammal play vocalisation," says a professor.

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

Researchers have discovered that a absence of such social exchanges can seriously harm both psychological and bodily health.

"The people you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced amounts of endorphin release," the professor continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in response to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with friends over a truly awful festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply chuckling at a foolish pun with a Christmas cracker," she says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the truly vital work of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you love."

Which Occurs In the Mind?

But what is actually happening within the brain when we listen to a joke?

A tremendous amount happens in response to humour, it turns out.

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of neural imager which indicates which areas of the brain are more active, researchers have been able to chart the areas that receive more blood.

The research entails scanning the brains of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of funny phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

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

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

Put these elements as a whole, and individuals hearing a pun have a sophisticated set of neural responses that support the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

Scientists discovered that when a humorous word is paired with chuckles there is a greater response in the mind than the identical word when followed by a non-emotional sound.

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

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

Amusement, according to the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the laughter heard around a Christmas table?

"You laugh harder when you know people," she notes, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good effect is more probable to be caused not by the joke in itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the perfect gag?

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

Years ago, a psychologist established a scientific search for the planet's funniest joke.

More than 40,000 gags submitted, with ratings provided by 350,000 people around the world, he has a better understanding than many as to what works and what does not.

The ideal Christmas cracker joke must be brief, he says.

"They must also be poor gags, puns that cause us to groan," he continues.

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

"The reason is that if nobody laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not yours.

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

"It creates a shared experience at the table and I believe it's lovely."