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

This joke is met by moans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a firm that makes products for social events. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

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

"You measure the joke by the number of moans and the intensity of the groans around the table," the founder explains.

The key to a good Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a good joke per se. It is all about the context - in this case, the shared amusement of the Christmas meal with grandparents, kids and possibly neighbours.

"The goal is for the gag to be something that brings the eight-year-old in harmony with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Laughter

Coming together to enjoy shared amusement is not only ancient, experts argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people around the Christmas dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammalian social vocalisation," says a professor.

Communal laughter, she explains, aids in make and maintain social bonds between people.

Scientists have discovered that a lack of such social exchanges can significantly harm both psychological and bodily health.

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it results in increased amounts of endorphin release," the professor continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to reduce stress and pain and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as chuckling with friends over a truly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," she says. "You are actually performing a lot of the really vital task of building, preserving the connections you have with those you care about."

Which Occurs In the Brain?

But what is truly taking place within the brain when we listen to a gag?

An awful lot occurs in response to humour, it transpires.

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

Testing entails imaging the brains of volunteer participants and then exposing them to a database of funny phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a very interesting pattern of neural activity," notes the professor.

A gag activates not just the parts of the mind responsible for auditory processing and interpreting language, but also brain regions associated with both preparation and starting motion and those linked to vision and memory.

Put all of this as a whole, and individuals hearing a pun have a complex series of neural reactions that underpin the laughter we hear.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a humorous phrase is paired with chuckles there is a stronger response in the brain than the same phrase when followed by a neutral sound.

"This was in areas of the mind that you would use to contort your expression into a smile or a chuckle," she says.

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

Amusement, according to the expert, can be contagious.

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

"You laugh more when you know others," she says, "and laughter increases more when you like them or care for them."

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

"The laughter is key. The gag is the dreadful holiday cracker joke, and it's just a pretext to chuckle as a group."

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the ultimate joke?

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

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

More than tens of thousands of jokes submitted, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what succeeds and what does not.

The ideal festive cracker joke needs to be brief, he says.

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

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

"This is because if no-one finds it funny – it's the gag's shortcoming, not your own.

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

"It creates a common experience at the gathering and I believe it's lovely."