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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 warehouse in London.

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a company that produces supplies for gatherings. Its catalogue features Christmas crackers.

The company's owner grins, nearly sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has made the cut and will appear in future crackers.

"The success is gauged by the gag by the number of groans and the loudness of the groans around the table," the founder explains.

The secret to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up gag in itself. It is all about the context - in this instance, the shared amusement of the holiday dinner table with grandparents, kids and possibly friends.

"You want the gag to be something that unites the child in harmony with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Science Of Shared Amusement

Coming together to enjoy communal amusement is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"So when you are chuckling with others at the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a truly ancient mammal social sound," says a neuroscience expert.

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

Researchers have found that a absence of such social exchanges can significantly harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

"The people you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," the professor adds.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a particularly awful Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a foolish pun with a holiday cracker," she states. "You are in fact doing a lot of the truly vital task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with the people you care about."

What Happens In the Brain?

But what is actually happening within the brain when we hear a gag?

A tremendous amount occurs in reaction to humour, it transpires.

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of neural imager which shows which parts of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to map the areas that receive more blood flow.

Testing involves imaging the minds of volunteer subjects 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 interesting pattern of activation," notes the professor.

A joke activates not just the parts of the brain responsible for auditory processing and understanding language, but also neural areas involved in both planning and starting movement and those linked to sight and recall.

Combine these elements as a whole, and people hearing a joke have a sophisticated set of brain responses that support the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

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

"This was in areas of the brain that you would use to move your face into a smile or a chuckle," she says.

It indicates we are not just responding to humorous jokes, they are responding to the amusement that accompanies them.

Amusement, according to the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles heard at a holiday gathering?

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

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good effect is more likely to be caused not by the joke in itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the ultimate joke?

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

In 2001, a psychologist established a research search for the planet's funniest joke.

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

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

"They must also be bad gags, jokes that make us moan," he adds.

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

"This is because if nobody finds it funny – it's the gag's fault, not your own.

"What's interesting about the Christmas cracker jokes is that not one person find them humorous.

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