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

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

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a firm that produces products for gatherings. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

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

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

The key to a great holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up gag in itself. It is all about the setting - in this instance, the communal amusement of the holiday meal with grandparents, kids and potentially neighbours.

"You want the joke to be a thing that brings the child together with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Science Behind Shared Laughter

Gathering to experience shared laughter is not only ancient, scientists say, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are laughing with others around the Christmas dinner you are dropping into what's very likely a truly primordial mammalian play vocalisation," says a professor.

Communal amusement, she explains, helps make and maintain social bonds between people.

Researchers have found that a lack of such interactions can seriously harm mental and physical health.

"The people you converse with, and share laughter with, it results in enhanced amounts of endorphin release," she continues.

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

"It's not simply laughing at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really vital work of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you love."

Which Occurs In the Mind?

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

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

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of neural imager which shows which areas of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood.

The research involves imaging the brains of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we observed a very interesting pattern of neural activity," notes the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the brain in charge of hearing and interpreting language, but also brain areas associated with both preparation and initiating movement and those linked to vision and recall.

Combine these elements as a whole, and people hearing a joke have a complex series of neural responses that support the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a funny phrase is combined with chuckles there is a stronger response 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 laugh," she says.

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

Amusement, according to the professor, can be contagious.

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

"You laugh harder when you know people," she notes, "and you laugh further when you like them or love them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she explains, the positive factor is more probable to be triggered not by the joke in itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Search for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the perfect joke?

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

Years ago, a professor set up a research search for the planet's funniest joke.

Over tens of thousands of gags submitted, with scores lodged by 350,000 participants globally, he has a clearer idea than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

The perfect Christmas cracker pun must be short, he explains.

"They must also be bad jokes, puns that make us groan," he continues.

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

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

"The fascinating part about the Christmas cracker jokes is that not one person find them funny.

"That's a common moment around the gathering and I think it's lovely."