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"How much did Father Christmas's sled cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This quip is greeted with groans that resonate through a storage facility in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that makes products for gatherings. Its repertoire includes festive crackers.

The firm's founder smiles, almost sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has been selected and will appear in future crackers.

"You measure the gag by the number of moans and the loudness of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

The secret to a good Christmas cracker pun is not the same as a stand-up gag per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the communal amusement of the Christmas dinner table with elders, kids and potentially friends.

"You want the joke to be a thing that unites the eight-year-old together with the grandparent," she adds.

The Science Behind Shared Amusement

Coming together to experience communal laughter is not only ancient, scientists argue, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others around the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really ancient mammal play sound," explains a professor.

Shared amusement, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Researchers have discovered that a absence of these social exchanges can significantly damage both psychological and bodily health.

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced levels of endorphin release," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as chuckling with loved ones over a particularly awful festive cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a foolish pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are actually performing a lot of the truly important task of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you care about."

Which Happens In the Brain?

But what is actually 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 shows which parts of the brain are working harder, researchers have been able to chart the areas that get more blood.

Testing entails imaging the brains of volunteer subjects and then exposing them to a collection of humorous words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we observed a really fascinating pattern of activation," says the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the mind responsible for auditory processing and interpreting speech, but also neural regions associated with both preparation and starting motion and those involved in vision and memory.

Put all of this together, and people hearing a joke have a complex set of brain responses that underpin the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Power of Laughter

Scientists found that when a funny word is combined with laughter there is a stronger response in the mind 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 smile or a laugh," she says.

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the laughter heard at a holiday gathering?

"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 Christmas cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good effect is more probable to be triggered not by the gag in itself, but from the reaction to it.

"It's the laughter. The gag is the terrible Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a reason to laugh as a group."

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the ultimate gag?

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

Years ago, a psychologist set up a scientific project for the world's funniest joke.

Over 40,000 gags later, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a clearer idea than many as to what works and what fails.

The ideal Christmas cracker pun needs to be short, he explains.

"They must also need to be poor gags, puns that make us moan," he adds.

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

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

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

"That's a shared experience at the gathering and I think it's lovely."