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

This quip is met by groans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

We're at a joke-testing session with a firm that makes products for social events. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

The firm's owner grins, almost sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has been selected and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"You measure the joke by the volume of groans and the intensity of the groans around the table," she says.

The secret to a great Christmas cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up joke in itself. It is all about the context - in this case, the communal amusement of the holiday meal with grandparents, children and possibly neighbours.

"You want the gag to be a thing that unites the child together with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Science Behind Shared Laughter

Gathering to experience communal amusement is not only ancient, scientists argue, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are laughing with people around the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's almost certainly a truly ancient mammalian play vocalisation," says a professor.

Shared amusement, she says, helps forge and strengthen social bonds between individuals.

Scientists have discovered that a lack of such social exchanges can seriously harm mental and physical well-being.

"The people you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to increased levels of endorphin uptake," the professor adds.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly awful Christmas cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a foolish pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are actually doing a lot of the really vital work of building, preserving the connections you have with those you love."

What Occurs In the Mind?

But what is actually taking place within the mind when we hear a joke?

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which indicates which areas of the brain are more active, scientists have been able to chart the regions that get more blood flow.

The research entails scanning the minds of healthy participants and then exposing them to a collection of funny words, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"During the study we observed a really fascinating activation pattern of activation," notes the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the areas of the brain responsible for hearing and understanding language, but also neural regions involved in both planning and starting movement and those linked to vision and recall.

Put these elements as a whole, and people listening to a pun have a sophisticated set of brain responses that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a funny phrase is paired with chuckles there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the identical phrase when followed by a neutral sound.

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

It indicates people are not just reacting to humorous jokes, they are reacting to the laughter that follows them.

Amusement, according to the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the laughter found at a holiday table?

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

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she explains, the positive factor is more probable to be caused not by the gag in itself, but from the response to it.

"It's the laughter. The joke is the dreadful holiday cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to laugh as a group."

The Quest for the Perfect Festive Pun

Is it possible to find the ultimate joke?

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

In 2001, a psychologist set up a scientific search for the world's funniest gag.

More than 40,000 gags submitted, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what works and what fails.

The perfect festive cracker joke must be short, he explains.

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

The increasingly "awful" the joke, he states the more effective.

"The reason is that if nobody laughs – it's the joke's fault, not your own.

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

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