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"How much did Father Christmas's sled cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This joke is greeted with groans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that produces products for gatherings. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

The firm's owner smiles, nearly sheepishly at the gag. But the joke has made the cut and will feature in future crackers.

"You measure the gag by the volume of moans and the intensity of the groans at the table," the founder says.

The secret to a great Christmas cracker joke is not the identical as a good gag in itself. It is entirely about the context - in this case, the shared laughter of the Christmas meal with elders, kids and possibly friends.

"You want the joke to be something that unites the child in harmony with the grandparent," she adds.

The Science Of Shared Amusement

Coming together to enjoy shared amusement is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"So when you are chuckling with people at the Christmas dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really ancient mammalian play vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Shared laughter, she explains, helps forge and strengthen social connections between people.

Researchers have found that a lack of such interactions can seriously damage mental and physical health.

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' release," the professor adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly terrible Christmas cracker gag.

"You're not just chuckling at a foolish joke with a holiday cracker," she states. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really vital task of building, preserving the connections you have with those you care about."

What Happens In the Mind?

But what is truly happening within the brain when we listen to a gag?

A tremendous amount happens in reaction to comedy, it turns out.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the brain are more active, scientists have been able to map the regions that receive more blood.

The research entails imaging the brains of volunteer subjects and then exposing them to a collection of funny phrases, paired with either a neutral sound, or recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we got a very fascinating pattern of neural activity," says the professor.

A joke activates not just the parts of the mind in charge of auditory processing and interpreting language, but also brain areas involved in both planning and initiating movement and those involved in vision and memory.

Combine these elements as a whole, and people listening to a pun have a sophisticated series of neural responses that support the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

Scientists found that when a funny phrase is combined with chuckles there is a stronger response in the mind than the identical word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This was in parts of the mind that you would employ to move your expression into a smile or a chuckle," the professor explains.

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

Laughter, according to the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the laughter heard around a Christmas table?

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

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she says, the feel-good factor is more likely to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Is it possible to discover the ultimate joke?

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

In 2001, a psychologist established a research project for the world's most humorous joke.

Over tens of thousands of gags submitted, with ratings lodged by 350,000 participants globally, he has a better idea than many as to what succeeds and what does not.

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

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

The more "awful" the gag, he says the better.

"This is because if no-one finds it funny – it's the gag's fault, not your own.

"The fascinating part about the Christmas cracker puns is that not one person considers them funny.

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