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

This joke is greeted with moans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that produces products for social events. Its catalogue includes festive crackers.

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

"You measure the gag by the volume of groans and the loudness of the groans at the table," she explains.

The key to a good holiday cracker pun is not the same as a stand-up joke in itself. It is all about the context - in this case, the shared laughter of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, kids and possibly neighbours.

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

The Science Of Communal Amusement

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

"So when you are chuckling with people around the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammal play sound," explains a neuroscience expert.

Communal amusement, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Scientists have found that a absence of such interactions can seriously damage mental and physical health.

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

Endorphins are the body's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with friends over a particularly awful festive cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are actually doing a lot of the really vital work of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you care about."

What Occurs In the Mind?

But what is truly taking place inside the brain when we listen to a joke?

An awful lot occurs in response to humour, it transpires.

Using brain scanning technology, a type of neural imager which shows which parts of the brain are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood.

Testing involves imaging the brains of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded laughter.

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

A joke activates not just the areas of the brain responsible for hearing and interpreting language, but also brain regions involved in both planning and initiating motion and those involved in vision and recall.

Combine all of this as a whole, and individuals hearing a joke have a complex set of brain reactions that support the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Scientists discovered that when a funny word is combined with chuckles there is a stronger response in the brain than the same word when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would employ to contort your face into a grin or a laugh," she explains.

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

Amusement, says the expert, can be infectious.

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

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with people," she says, "and laughter increases 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 triggered not by the gag in itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever find the ultimate gag?

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

Years ago, a professor established a research search for the planet's funniest joke.

Over tens of thousands of gags later, with ratings lodged by 350,000 people globally, he has a clearer idea than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

The perfect festive cracker pun needs to be short, he explains.

"They must also be bad gags, jokes that make us groan," he adds.

The increasingly "awful" the gag, he says the more effective.

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

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

"It creates a common moment around the table and I believe it's wonderful."