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"What was the price did Father Christmas's sled cost? Zero, 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 company that produces products for social events. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

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

"The success is gauged by the gag by the number of groans and the loudness of the groans around the table," she says.

The key to a great holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up joke per se. It is all about the context - in this instance, the shared laughter of the Christmas meal with grandparents, kids and potentially friends.

"You want the gag to be a thing that unites the eight-year-old in harmony with the grandparent," she adds.

The Neuroscience Behind Shared Amusement

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

"So when you are laughing with others around the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a truly ancient mammalian play vocalisation," says a neuroscience expert.

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

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

"The people you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to enhanced amounts of endorphin uptake," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce 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 foolish joke with a Christmas cracker," the expert says. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly important task of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you love."

Which Happens Inside the Brain?

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

An awful lot happens in response to comedy, it turns out.

Using brain scanning technology, a type of neural imager which indicates which areas of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to map the areas that receive more blood.

Testing entails scanning the minds of healthy subjects and then exposing them to a collection of funny phrases, paired with either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

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

A gag activates not just the areas of the brain responsible for hearing and interpreting speech, but also brain regions associated with both preparation and starting motion and those linked to sight and memory.

Put these elements as a whole, and people hearing a pun have a complex series of neural reactions that underpin the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Scientists discovered that when a humorous phrase is paired with laughter there is a greater response in the mind than the identical phrase when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the mind that you would use to move your face into a smile or a chuckle," the professor says.

It means we are not just responding to funny jokes, they are reacting to the amusement that accompanies them.

Amusement, says the expert, can be infectious.

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

"People laugh more when you know others," she says, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or love them."

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

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

The Search for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Is it possible to discover the ultimate joke?

Probably not, but that has not stopped experts from attempting to.

Years ago, a psychologist set up a scientific search for the planet's most humorous joke.

More than tens of thousands of jokes submitted, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a better idea than most as to what succeeds and what does not.

The perfect festive cracker joke must be short, he explains.

"But they also need to be bad gags, puns that cause us to moan," he adds.

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

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

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

"That's a shared experience around the gathering and I believe it's wonderful."