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

This quip is met by groans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that produces products for social events. Its repertoire includes festive crackers.

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

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

The secret to a great holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a good gag per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the communal amusement of the Christmas dinner table with elders, kids and potentially neighbours.

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

The Neuroscience Of Communal Laughter

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

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others around the Christmas table you are dropping into what's very likely a really ancient mammal play vocalisation," explains a professor.

Communal laughter, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between individuals.

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

"Those you talk to, and share laughter with, it results in increased amounts of endorphin release," the professor continues.

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

"You're not just laughing at a foolish pun with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are actually doing a lot of the really important work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with the people you care about."

What Happens In the Mind?

But what is truly happening inside the mind when we listen to a joke?

An awful lot occurs in reaction to humour, it turns out.

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of neural imager which indicates which areas of the mind are more active, scientists have been able to map the areas that get more blood.

The research entails imaging the minds of healthy participants and then exposing them to a database of humorous phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we observed a very fascinating activation pattern of activation," says the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the areas of the brain in charge of auditory processing and interpreting language, but also neural areas involved in both planning and initiating motion and those involved in vision and recall.

Combine all of this together, and people listening to a joke have a complex series of brain reactions that support the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a humorous phrase is combined with chuckles there is a greater response in the mind than the same phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in areas of the brain that you would use to contort your face into a smile or a chuckle," she explains.

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

Amusement, says the professor, can be contagious.

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

"People laugh harder when you know people," she says, "and laughter increases further when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she explains, the feel-good factor is more probable to be caused not by the gag in itself, but from the response 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 Festive Pun

Is it possible to find the perfect gag?

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

In 2001, a professor set up a scientific project for the planet's most humorous gag.

Over 40,000 gags later, with ratings provided by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a clearer idea than many as to what works and what fails.

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

"They must also be poor gags, puns that make us moan," he continues.

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

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

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

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