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

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

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a firm that produces supplies for gatherings. Its catalogue includes festive crackers.

The company's founder grins, nearly sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has been selected and will feature in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the gag by the volume of moans and the intensity of the groans at the table," she explains.

The key to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the same as a stand-up joke in itself. It is all about the setting - in this instance, the communal amusement of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially neighbours.

"You want the gag to be something that unites the eight-year-old together with the grandparent," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Amusement

Coming together to enjoy shared amusement is not only ancient, experts argue, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others around the Christmas table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a really primordial mammalian play vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Communal amusement, she explains, aids in make and maintain social bonds between people.

Researchers have found that a absence of such social exchanges can seriously damage mental and physical health.

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it results in increased levels of endorphin release," the professor adds.

Endorphins are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly awful festive cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a foolish pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly important task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with the people you love."

What Occurs Inside the Mind?

But what is truly happening within the mind when we listen to a joke?

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

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which indicates which parts of the brain are working harder, scientists have been able to map the areas that get more blood flow.

Testing entails imaging the brains of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

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

A joke activates not just the parts of the mind in charge of auditory processing and interpreting language, but also neural regions associated with both preparation and initiating motion and those linked to sight and recall.

Combine these elements as a whole, and individuals hearing a joke have a sophisticated set of brain reactions that support the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Scientists discovered that when a funny phrase is paired with chuckles there is a stronger response in the mind than the identical phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the brain that you would employ to contort your expression into a grin or a laugh," the professor says.

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

Amusement, according to the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the laughter heard around a holiday gathering?

"People laugh more when you are familiar with others," she says, "and laughter increases further when you are fond of them or care for them."

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

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

The Search for the Ideal Festive Pun

Is it possible to discover the ultimate gag?

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

Years ago, a professor established a research project for the world's most humorous gag.

Over 40,000 gags later, with ratings provided by 350,000 people globally, he has a better understanding than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

The ideal festive cracker joke needs to be short, he explains.

"But they also need to be poor gags, puns that cause us to moan," he adds.

The increasingly "awful" the gag, he says the more effective.

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

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

"That's a common experience at the table and I believe it's wonderful."