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"How much did Santa's sleigh cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This one-liner is met by moans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a firm that produces products for gatherings. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

The company's founder grins, nearly apologetically at the gag. But the pun has made the cut and will feature in upcoming crackers.

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

The secret to a good holiday cracker joke is not the same as a good joke per se. It is all about the setting - in this instance, the shared amusement of the holiday dinner table with grandparents, children and possibly neighbours.

"You want the gag to be a thing that brings the eight-year-old together with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Of Communal Amusement

Gathering to experience communal amusement is not only nothing new, scientists argue, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people around the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really primordial mammal play vocalisation," says a neuroscience expert.

Communal laughter, she says, helps make and maintain social connections between people.

Scientists have discovered that a lack of such social exchanges can significantly damage mental and physical health.

"The people you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' release," she continues.

Endorphins are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly awful festive cracker joke.

"You're not just laughing at a foolish pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the truly vital task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you care about."

What Occurs Inside the Brain?

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

An awful lot occurs in response to comedy, it turns out.

Using brain scanning technology, a kind of brain scanner which shows which areas of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the areas that receive more blood.

Testing entails imaging the brains of healthy subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of funny phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

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

A gag activates not just the areas of the brain in charge of hearing and understanding speech, but also neural areas involved in both planning and starting motion and those involved in sight and recall.

Put all of this together, and people listening to a joke have a sophisticated set of brain responses that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Infectious Power of Laughter

Scientists found that when a humorous phrase is combined with chuckles there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the same phrase when followed by a neutral sound.

"This was in areas of the brain that you would employ to contort your expression into a smile or a laugh," she says.

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

Amusement, says the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles heard at a holiday table?

"People laugh harder when you know others," 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 positive factor is more probable to be caused not by the joke in itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Search for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the ultimate joke?

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

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

More than 40,000 gags submitted, with scores provided by 350,000 people globally, he has a better idea than most as to what works and what fails.

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

"They must also be poor gags, jokes that make us moan," he continues.

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

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

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

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