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

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

This describes a joke-testing session with a firm that makes products for gatherings. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

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

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

The secret to a good holiday cracker joke is not the same as a good gag in itself. It is all about the setting - in this case, the shared laughter of the holiday dinner table with elders, kids and possibly friends.

"You want the gag to be something that brings the eight-year-old together with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Shared Amusement

Gathering to enjoy communal laughter is not only nothing new, experts say, it is probably to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with others around the holiday table you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really ancient mammal play sound," explains a neuroscience expert.

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

Scientists have found that a lack of such interactions can significantly damage both psychological and bodily well-being.

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it leads to increased levels of 'happy chemical' release," she adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in response to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly awful Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a foolish pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly vital work of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you love."

What Occurs Inside the Brain?

But what is truly happening 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 shows which areas of the brain are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the areas that get more blood.

The research involves scanning the minds of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of funny phrases, paired with either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we observed a very fascinating activation pattern of activation," says the professor.

A gag stimulates not just the areas of the mind in charge of hearing and understanding language, but also brain regions associated with both preparation and initiating movement and those involved in vision and memory.

Put these elements as a whole, and people hearing a joke have a sophisticated series of neural responses that support the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a funny phrase is combined with laughter there is a stronger response in the mind than the identical phrase when accompanied by a neutral sound.

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

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles found around a holiday gathering?

"People laugh harder when you are familiar with people," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you like them or love them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she explains, the positive factor is more likely to be caused not by the joke in itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Quest for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever discover the perfect joke?

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

Years ago, a psychologist established a scientific search for the world's funniest joke.

Over 40,000 gags submitted, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, he has a clearer understanding than many as to what succeeds and what does not.

The perfect Christmas cracker pun must be brief, he explains.

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

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

"The reason is that if no-one laughs – it's the gag's fault, not yours.

"What's interesting about the Christmas cracker puns is that not one person considers them funny.

"It creates a common experience around the table and I think it's lovely."