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"How much did Father Christmas's sled cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This one-liner is greeted with groans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

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

The firm's owner grins, almost sheepishly at the gag. But the joke has made the cut and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the gag by the number of moans and the intensity of the groans around the table," she explains.

The secret to a great holiday cracker joke is not the same as a stand-up gag per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the communal amusement of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, kids and possibly neighbours.

"You want the gag to be something that brings the eight-year-old in harmony with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Science Of Communal Laughter

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

"So when you are laughing with others at the Christmas table you are engaging in what's very likely a truly primordial mammal play sound," explains a neuroscience expert.

Shared amusement, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between individuals.

Scientists have discovered that a lack of such social exchanges can significantly damage both psychological and bodily well-being.

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it results in increased amounts of endorphin uptake," the professor adds.

Endorphins are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with friends over a particularly terrible festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply chuckling at a foolish pun with a Christmas cracker," she says. "You are actually performing a lot of the really important work of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you love."

What Happens Inside the Mind?

But what is truly happening within the mind when we hear a joke?

An awful lot happens in reaction to comedy, it turns out.

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

The research entails scanning the brains of volunteer subjects and then exposing them to a collection of funny words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"During the study we got a very interesting activation pattern of activation," says the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the parts of the mind responsible for auditory processing and understanding speech, but also brain regions involved in both preparation and starting motion and those linked to vision and recall.

Combine all of this as a whole, and individuals hearing a joke have a sophisticated series of neural responses that support the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Power of Laughter

Scientists discovered that when a funny word is combined with laughter there is a stronger response in the mind than the same phrase when accompanied by a neutral sound.

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

It means people are not just reacting to humorous words, they are reacting to the amusement that follows them.

Laughter, according to the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the laughter heard at a holiday table?

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

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

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

The Search for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the ultimate joke?

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

In 2001, a professor set up a scientific project for the world's funniest gag.

Over tens of thousands of jokes submitted, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a better idea than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

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

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

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

"This is because if nobody finds it funny – it's the gag's fault, not your own.

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

"It creates a common moment around the table and I believe it's wonderful."