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

This joke is met by groans that echo through a warehouse in London.

This describes a joke-testing session with a firm that produces products for social events. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

The company's owner smiles, almost sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has been selected and will feature in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the volume of groans and the loudness of the groans around the table," the founder explains.

The secret to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the same as a good gag per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the shared amusement of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, kids and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the gag to be something that brings the child in harmony with the grandparent," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Laughter

Coming together to experience shared amusement is not only ancient, scientists say, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are laughing with people at the holiday table you are dropping into what's very likely a truly primordial mammalian play vocalisation," explains a professor.

Shared amusement, she explains, aids in make and maintain social connections between people.

Scientists have found that a lack of these interactions can significantly harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

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

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are released both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in reaction 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 Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are actually performing a lot of the really important task of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you love."

Which Happens In the Mind?

But what is truly happening inside the brain when we hear a joke?

A tremendous amount happens in response to humour, it turns out.

Employing brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which shows which areas of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to map the regions that receive more blood flow.

Testing involves scanning the brains of healthy subjects and then exposing them to a collection of funny phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we got a very fascinating pattern of activation," says the neuroscientist.

A joke stimulates not just the parts of the brain responsible for auditory processing and interpreting language, but also neural areas involved in both planning and starting motion and those involved in vision and recall.

Combine these elements as a whole, and individuals hearing a pun have a sophisticated series of brain responses that support the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a funny word is combined with laughter there is a greater response in the brain than the same phrase when followed by a non-emotional sound.

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

It indicates people are not just responding to funny words, they are responding to the laughter that follows them.

Amusement, says the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles heard around a Christmas table?

"You laugh more when you are familiar with people," she says, "and laughter increases more when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she explains, the feel-good effect is more likely to be triggered not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

"The laughter is key. The gag is the dreadful Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to chuckle together."

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Is it possible to discover the ultimate gag?

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

In 2001, a psychologist established a research project for the world's funniest gag.

More than 40,000 jokes later, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, he has a better idea than most as to what works and what fails.

The perfect Christmas cracker pun must be short, he explains.

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

The more "terrible" the gag, he says the better.

"The reason is that if nobody finds it funny – it's the joke's shortcoming, not yours.

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

"It creates a shared experience around the gathering and I think it's lovely."