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

This one-liner is greeted with moans that resonate through a storage facility in the capital.

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

The company's owner grins, nearly apologetically at the gag. But the pun has made the cut and will feature in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the number of groans and the intensity of the groans around the table," she says.

The key to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the same as a stand-up gag per se. It is entirely about the context - in this instance, the shared laughter of the holiday meal with grandparents, children and possibly neighbours.

"You want the gag to be a thing that unites the child together with the grandparent," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Laughter

Gathering to experience communal laughter is not only ancient, scientists argue, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"So when you are chuckling with others at the Christmas table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a truly ancient mammal social sound," explains a neuroscience expert.

Shared laughter, she explains, helps make and maintain social connections between individuals.

Scientists have discovered that a absence of these interactions can significantly damage mental and physical health.

"Those you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to increased amounts of endorphin uptake," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly terrible Christmas cracker gag.

"You're not just chuckling at a foolish joke with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact doing a lot of the truly vital task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you love."

What Occurs Inside the Mind?

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

A tremendous amount occurs in response to comedy, it transpires.

Using brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the brain are working harder, researchers have been able to map the regions that get more blood.

The research entails imaging the minds of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of funny words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

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

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the mind responsible for hearing and understanding language, but also neural areas associated with both planning and initiating movement and those linked to vision and memory.

Combine all of this as a whole, and individuals listening to a joke have a sophisticated series of neural responses that underpin the laughter we hear.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Scientists found that when a humorous word is combined with chuckles there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the identical phrase when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This was in parts of the mind that you would use to contort your face into a grin or a chuckle," she explains.

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

Amusement, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles heard at a Christmas table?

"People laugh harder when you know others," she notes, "and laughter increases more when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she says, 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 gag is the terrible holiday cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to laugh as a group."

The Search for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the perfect gag?

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

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

Over 40,000 jokes later, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, he has a clearer idea than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

The ideal Christmas cracker pun needs to be brief, he says.

"But they also be bad jokes, puns that cause us to groan," he adds.

The increasingly "terrible" the joke, he says the better.

"The reason is that if no-one finds it funny – it's the joke's fault, not yours.

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

"That's a common experience at the gathering and I think it's wonderful."