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

This one-liner is greeted with groans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation session with a firm that produces supplies for social events. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

The firm's owner smiles, almost sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has made the cut and will appear in future crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the number of groans and the intensity of the groans around the table," the founder says.

The key to a great holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a good joke in itself. It is entirely about the context - in this instance, the shared amusement of the Christmas meal with elders, children and potentially neighbours.

"You want the joke to be a thing that unites the child in harmony with the grandparent," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Laughter

Gathering to experience communal amusement is not only nothing new, scientists say, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are laughing with others around the Christmas table you are engaging in what's very likely a really primordial mammalian social vocalisation," explains a professor.

Shared laughter, she says, helps make and maintain social connections between individuals.

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

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it results in increased amounts of endorphin release," she adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to reduce tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

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

What Occurs In the Mind?

But what is actually happening within the mind when we hear a gag?

An awful lot occurs in response to humour, it turns out.

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which shows which areas of the brain are working harder, scientists have been able to map the areas that get more blood flow.

The research involves scanning the brains of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded chuckles.

"During the study we observed a really interesting activation pattern of activation," says the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the brain responsible for hearing and understanding speech, but also brain areas associated with both planning and initiating movement and those linked to sight and recall.

Put these elements together, and individuals hearing a joke have a sophisticated series of brain reactions that support the laughter we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Laughter

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

"This activation occurred in parts of the brain that you would employ to move your expression into a grin or a laugh," the professor says.

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

Laughter, according to the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the laughter found at a holiday table?

"People laugh harder when you are familiar with people," she says, "and laughter increases more when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she explains, the positive factor is more likely to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Search for the Ideal Festive Pun

Is it possible to find the perfect gag?

Likely not, but that has not stopped researchers from trying to.

Years ago, a professor set up a research project for the world's most humorous joke.

Over 40,000 gags later, with ratings lodged by 350,000 people around the world, he has a better idea than most as to what succeeds and what does not.

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

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

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

"The reason is that if no-one laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not your own.

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

"That's a common moment at the gathering and I believe it's lovely."