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

This quip is met by moans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

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

The firm's founder smiles, almost sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has been selected 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," the founder explains.

The key to a good holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a good joke in itself. It is all about the context - in this case, the shared laughter of the holiday dinner table with elders, kids and potentially friends.

"You want the joke to be something that brings the eight-year-old together with the grandparent," she adds.

The Science Behind Communal Laughter

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

"So when you are chuckling with others at the Christmas table you are dropping into what's very likely a truly ancient mammalian play vocalisation," says a professor.

Shared amusement, she says, aids in make and maintain social connections between people.

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

"The people you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to increased amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," she adds.

Endorphins are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly awful Christmas cracker gag.

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

What Occurs In the Mind?

But what is actually taking place inside the brain when we hear a joke?

An awful lot occurs in response to humour, it turns out.

Employing brain scanning technology, a type of neural imager which indicates which parts of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the areas that get more blood flow.

Testing involves imaging the brains of healthy subjects and then subjecting them to a database of humorous phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

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

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the brain responsible for auditory processing and interpreting language, but also neural areas associated with both planning and initiating motion and those involved in vision and recall.

Combine these elements together, and people hearing a joke have a sophisticated set of brain reactions that support the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a humorous word is combined with laughter there is a greater response in the mind than the same word when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would employ to contort your face into a smile or a chuckle," the professor says.

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles heard around a Christmas gathering?

"People laugh more when you know others," she notes, "and you laugh more when you like them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she says, the positive factor is more probable to be triggered not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the ultimate joke?

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

Years ago, a professor set up a research search for the planet's most humorous gag.

More than 40,000 jokes submitted, with ratings provided by hundreds of thousands of people globally, he has a better understanding than most as to what works and what does not.

The perfect festive cracker joke must be short, he says.

"But they also need to be bad gags, jokes that make us groan," he continues.

The more "terrible" the gag, he states the more effective.

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the joke's shortcoming, not your own.

"What's interesting about the holiday cracker puns is that none of us considers them humorous.

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