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

This joke is greeted with moans that echo through a warehouse in London.

We're at a joke-testing session with a firm that makes supplies for social events. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

The company's founder smiles, nearly sheepishly at the gag. But the joke has been selected and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"You measure the gag by the volume of moans and the intensity of the groans around the table," the founder says.

The key to a great holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a good joke per se. It is all about the context - in this instance, the communal amusement of the holiday meal with elders, children and possibly neighbours.

"The goal is for the gag to be something that unites the child together with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Of Communal Laughter

Coming together to enjoy shared amusement is not only nothing new, scientists argue, it is probably to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are laughing with others at the Christmas table you are engaging in what's very likely a really ancient mammal social vocalisation," says a neuroscience expert.

Communal amusement, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between people.

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

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it leads to increased levels of endorphin release," the professor adds.

Endorphins are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in response to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with friends over a truly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly vital task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you care about."

Which Occurs In the Mind?

But what is truly taking place within the brain when we hear a joke?

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

Using brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the brain are more active, researchers have been able to chart the areas that get more blood flow.

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

"In the scanner we observed a really fascinating pattern of neural activity," notes the neuroscientist.

A gag stimulates not just the areas of the mind responsible for hearing and understanding language, but also brain areas associated with both preparation and initiating movement and those involved in sight and recall.

Combine these elements as a whole, and individuals hearing a pun have a sophisticated series of brain responses that underpin the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Researchers found that when a humorous phrase is combined with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the brain than the same word when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

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

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

Amusement, according to the professor, can be contagious.

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

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

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she says, the feel-good factor is more likely to be triggered not by the joke itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the perfect joke?

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

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

More than 40,000 jokes later, with scores lodged by 350,000 people globally, he has a better understanding than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

The perfect festive cracker joke needs to be brief, he explains.

"They must also need to be bad gags, jokes that cause us to moan," he continues.

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

"The reason is that if nobody finds it funny – it's the gag's fault, not your own.

"What's interesting about the Christmas cracker puns is that not one person considers them funny.

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