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"What was the price did Santa's sleigh cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This joke is met by groans that resonate through a storage facility in the capital.

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a company that makes products for gatherings. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

The firm's owner grins, nearly sheepishly at the gag. But the joke has been selected and will feature in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the volume of moans and the loudness of the groans around the table," the founder explains.

The key to a great holiday cracker joke is not the same as a good gag in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the communal laughter of the holiday dinner table with grandparents, children and possibly friends.

"You want the gag to be something that unites the child together with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Laughter

Gathering to enjoy shared laughter is not only nothing new, experts say, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are laughing with people around the holiday table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a really ancient mammalian social sound," says a professor.

Shared laughter, she says, helps forge and strengthen social bonds between people.

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

"The people you converse with, and share laughter with, it results in increased amounts of endorphin uptake," the professor continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as chuckling with friends over a truly terrible festive cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a foolish joke with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly important task of building, preserving the connections you have with those you love."

What Occurs In the Brain?

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

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

Using brain scanning technology, a type of neural imager which shows which areas of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to map the regions that get more blood flow.

Testing entails imaging the minds of volunteer participants and then exposing them to a database of humorous phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we observed a really interesting pattern of activation," says the neuroscientist.

A joke stimulates not just the parts of the brain in charge of auditory processing and understanding language, but also brain areas associated with both planning and starting motion and those involved in sight and recall.

Put all of this together, and people listening to a pun have a complex series of brain reactions that support the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Researchers found that when a humorous phrase is combined with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the same word when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the mind that you would use to move your expression into a grin or a chuckle," the professor says.

It means people are not just reacting to humorous words, they are reacting to the amusement that accompanies them.

Amusement, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the laughter found around a holiday table?

"You laugh harder when you know people," she says, "and laughter increases further 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 gag itself, but from the response to it.

"The laughter is key. The joke is the dreadful holiday cracker joke, and it's just a pretext to laugh together."

The Search for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Is it possible to find the perfect joke?

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

Years ago, a professor set up a research search for the world's most humorous joke.

More than tens of thousands of gags later, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of people globally, he has a clearer idea than many as to what works and what fails.

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

"But they also need to be poor jokes, puns that make us groan," he continues.

The increasingly "terrible" the gag, he states the more effective.

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

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

"That's a shared moment at the gathering and I believe it's wonderful."