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

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

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

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

"You measure the gag by the number of moans and the loudness of the groans around the table," she says.

The secret to a great Christmas cracker joke is not the identical as a good joke in itself. It is all about the setting - in this case, the shared laughter of the Christmas meal with elders, kids and possibly neighbours.

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

The Science Of Communal Amusement

Coming together to experience shared amusement is not only nothing new, scientists argue, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"So when you are chuckling with people around the Christmas table you are engaging in what's very likely a truly ancient mammal social vocalisation," explains a professor.

Shared amusement, she says, aids in make and maintain social bonds between people.

Researchers have found that a lack of such interactions can seriously damage mental and physical well-being.

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it results in increased amounts of endorphin release," the professor adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly awful Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really important work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you love."

Which Happens Inside the Brain?

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

An awful lot occurs in response to comedy, it transpires.

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

Testing entails scanning the brains of volunteer subjects and then exposing them to a database of funny phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded laughter.

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

A joke activates not just the areas of the mind in charge of hearing and understanding language, but also brain areas involved in both preparation and starting motion and those involved in vision and memory.

Put all of this as a whole, and people listening to a pun have a complex set of brain responses that support the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Scientists found that when a humorous word is combined with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the same word when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in areas of the brain that you would use to contort your expression into a smile or a chuckle," the professor explains.

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

Amusement, says the professor, can be contagious.

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

"People laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she notes, "and laughter increases more when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she says, the positive effect is more likely to be triggered not by the gag in itself, but from the response to it.

"The laughter is key. The gag is the terrible holiday cracker pun, and it's just a reason to chuckle together."

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the perfect joke?

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

In 2001, a psychologist set up a research project for the world's most humorous joke.

More than 40,000 jokes submitted, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a better understanding than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

The ideal Christmas cracker joke needs to be brief, he explains.

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

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

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

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

"It creates a common experience at the table and I think it's lovely."