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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 resonate through a warehouse in London.

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

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

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

The secret to a great holiday cracker pun is not the same as a good joke per se. It is entirely about the context - in this case, the communal amusement of the holiday meal with elders, kids and possibly neighbours.

"You want the gag to be a thing that unites the child together with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Laughter

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

"So when you are chuckling with people around the Christmas dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really primordial mammal play vocalisation," explains a professor.

Shared amusement, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Scientists have found that a absence of these interactions can significantly harm mental and physical well-being.

"The people you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," she adds.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are released both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in reaction to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a truly awful festive cracker joke.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," she says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the truly important task of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you care about."

What Occurs In the Mind?

But what is truly taking place inside the mind when we listen to a gag?

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

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

Testing involves scanning the minds of healthy participants and then exposing them to a database of humorous phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we got a really fascinating pattern of neural activity," says the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the areas of the brain in charge of hearing and understanding speech, but also brain areas associated with both preparation and starting movement and those linked to sight and memory.

Combine these elements together, and individuals hearing a joke have a sophisticated series of neural responses that support the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a funny phrase is combined with chuckles there is a greater reaction in the brain than the identical phrase when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the brain that you would employ to contort your expression into a grin or a laugh," she says.

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

Amusement, says the expert, can be infectious.

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

"You laugh more when you are familiar with others," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she explains, the feel-good effect is more probable to be triggered not by the joke itself, but from the reaction to it.

"The laughter is key. The joke is the terrible Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to chuckle as a group."

The Quest for the Ideal Festive Pun

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 scientific search for the planet's funniest joke.

Over 40,000 jokes submitted, with ratings lodged by 350,000 participants around the world, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what works and what does not.

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

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

The more "awful" the joke, he says the better.

"The reason is that 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 considers them humorous.

"That's a common moment at the table and I think it's lovely."