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

This one-liner is greeted with moans that resonate through a warehouse in London.

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

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

"The success is gauged by the gag by the number of groans and the loudness of the groans at the table," she explains.

The key to a great holiday cracker joke is not the same as a stand-up gag in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the communal laughter of the holiday dinner table with grandparents, kids and possibly neighbours.

"The goal is for the gag to be something that unites the child together with the grandparent," she adds.

The Neuroscience Behind Shared Laughter

Gathering to enjoy communal amusement is not only ancient, scientists argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people at the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a truly primordial mammalian play sound," explains a professor.

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

Scientists have discovered that a lack of these social exchanges can seriously damage both psychological and bodily well-being.

"The people you converse with, and laugh 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 reduce stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly terrible Christmas cracker gag.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly vital work of making, maintaining the connections you have with the people you love."

Which Happens In the Mind?

But what is truly taking place within the brain when we listen to a joke?

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which indicates which areas of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to map the areas that receive more blood flow.

The research entails imaging the minds of healthy participants and then exposing them to a database of funny phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we observed a very interesting pattern of neural activity," notes the professor.

A gag activates not just the parts of the brain in charge of hearing and understanding speech, but also brain regions involved in both planning and starting movement and those linked to sight and recall.

Put all of this as a whole, and individuals listening to a joke have a sophisticated set of brain reactions that underpin the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a humorous phrase is paired with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the same phrase when followed by a neutral sound.

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

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

Amusement, according to the professor, can be infectious.

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

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

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she explains, the positive effect is more likely to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Search for the Ideal Festive Pun

Will we ever discover the ultimate joke?

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

In 2001, a psychologist established a research search for the planet's most humorous joke.

Over tens of thousands of gags later, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a better idea than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

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

"But they also need to be bad gags, jokes that cause us to groan," he continues.

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

"This is because if nobody finds it funny – it's the joke's fault, not yours.

"The fascinating part about the Christmas cracker puns is that none of us find them funny.

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