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

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

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that makes supplies for gatherings. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

The company's owner grins, nearly apologetically at the gag. But the joke has made the cut and will appear in future crackers.

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

The key to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the same as a stand-up gag per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the shared amusement of the Christmas meal with grandparents, children and potentially neighbours.

"You want the joke to be a thing that brings the child together with the grandparent," she states.

The Neuroscience Behind Communal Amusement

Coming together to experience shared amusement is not only ancient, experts say, it is probably to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people at the holiday table you are dropping into what's very likely a really primordial mammalian social sound," explains a professor.

Communal laughter, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between individuals.

Scientists have discovered that a absence of these social exchanges can seriously damage mental and physical well-being.

"Those you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," the professor continues.

Endorphins are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a particularly awful festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," she says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really important work of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you love."

Which Occurs In the Brain?

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

An awful lot happens in reaction to humour, it turns out.

Using brain scanning technology, a type of neural imager which shows which parts of the brain are more active, researchers have been able to chart the areas that receive more blood flow.

Testing entails imaging the brains of healthy subjects and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded laughter.

"During the study we observed a very interesting pattern of neural activity," notes the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the areas of the mind responsible for hearing and interpreting language, but also neural areas involved in both planning and initiating movement and those linked to sight and recall.

Combine these elements together, and people listening to a pun have a sophisticated set of neural responses that underpin the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a funny word is combined with chuckles there is a greater reaction in the mind than the same phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would use to move your expression into a grin or a laugh," the professor explains.

It indicates we are not just responding to funny words, they are responding to the amusement that accompanies them.

Laughter, says the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the laughter found at a Christmas table?

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

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she says, the positive factor is more likely to be caused not by the gag in itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the perfect gag?

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

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

More than 40,000 jokes submitted, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a better idea than many as to what works and what fails.

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

"But they also be bad gags, puns that make us moan," he adds.

The more "awful" the gag, he states the better.

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the gag's fault, not yours.

"The fascinating part about the holiday cracker jokes is that not one person considers them humorous.

"That's a shared moment around the gathering and I believe it's lovely."