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"How much did Santa's sled cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

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

We're at a joke-testing meeting with a firm that makes products for gatherings. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

The firm's owner smiles, almost apologetically at the gag. 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 intensity of the groans at the table," she says.

The key to a great holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up gag per se. It is all about the context - in this case, the communal laughter of the Christmas meal with grandparents, children and potentially neighbours.

"The goal is for the gag to be a thing that unites the child in harmony with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Amusement

Gathering to experience shared amusement is not only nothing new, experts say, it is likely to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with others around the Christmas dinner you are dropping into what's very likely a really ancient mammal social vocalisation," explains a professor.

Communal amusement, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Scientists have found that a absence of these social exchanges can seriously harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

"The people you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to enhanced levels of endorphin uptake," she continues.

Endorphins are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in response to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a truly awful Christmas cracker joke.

"It's not simply laughing at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," she states. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really important work of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you care about."

What Occurs Inside the Brain?

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

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of brain scanner which shows which areas of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to map the regions that get more blood flow.

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

"During the study we observed a very interesting pattern of neural activity," says the neuroscientist.

A joke activates not just the areas of the mind in charge of hearing and interpreting language, but also brain areas associated with both planning and starting movement and those linked to vision and memory.

Put all of this together, and individuals listening to a joke have a sophisticated set of brain responses that support the amusement we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a funny word is paired with laughter there is a stronger response in the brain than the same word when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in areas of the brain that you would employ to contort your expression into a grin or a laugh," the professor explains.

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles found at a holiday table?

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

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she says, the feel-good factor is more probable to be caused not by the gag in itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Quest for the Ideal Festive Pun

Is it possible to discover the ultimate gag?

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

In 2001, a psychologist set up a scientific project for the world's most humorous gag.

More than 40,000 jokes later, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, he has a clearer idea than most as to what succeeds and what does not.

The perfect Christmas cracker joke needs to be short, he says.

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

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

"The reason is that if no-one laughs – it's the joke's fault, not your own.

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

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