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

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

This describes a joke-testing session with a firm that makes supplies for social events. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

The firm's founder grins, almost sheepishly at the gag. But the joke has made the cut and will appear in upcoming crackers.

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

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

"You want the joke to be something that brings the eight-year-old together with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Science Behind Shared Amusement

Coming together to experience shared laughter is not only nothing new, scientists say, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"So when you are laughing with others around the holiday dinner you are engaging in what's almost certainly a truly ancient mammal play sound," says a neuroscience expert.

Communal laughter, she says, helps forge and strengthen social connections between people.

Scientists have found that a lack of such interactions can seriously harm both psychological and bodily health.

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced levels of 'happy chemical' release," she adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly terrible Christmas cracker gag.

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

What Happens In the Brain?

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

A tremendous amount occurs in response to comedy, it transpires.

Using brain scanning technology, a kind of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the brain are more active, scientists have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood flow.

The research entails scanning the minds of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous words, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or recorded laughter.

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

A gag stimulates not just the areas of the mind responsible for auditory processing and understanding language, but also neural areas associated with both planning and starting movement and those involved in sight and recall.

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

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

Scientists found that when a funny phrase is combined with laughter there is a stronger response in the mind than the identical word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the mind that you would employ to move your face into a smile or a laugh," she says.

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

Amusement, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles found around a Christmas gathering?

"You laugh more when you are familiar with others," she says, "and laughter increases further when you are fond of them or care for them."

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

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

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Is it possible to discover the perfect joke?

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

In 2001, a psychologist established a research search for the planet's most humorous joke.

Over tens of thousands of gags later, with ratings provided by 350,000 participants around the world, he has a better understanding than many as to what succeeds and what does not.

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

"They must also be bad jokes, jokes that cause us to moan," he continues.

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

"The reason is that if no-one finds it funny – it's the joke's fault, not your own.

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

"It creates a shared moment at the gathering and I believe it's wonderful."