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"What was the price did Santa's sled cost? Zero, it was on the house."

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

This describes a joke-testing session with a firm that produces products for social events. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

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

"You measure the gag by the number of moans and the intensity of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

The key to a great holiday cracker joke is not the same as a good gag in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the shared amusement of the Christmas dinner table with elders, kids and possibly friends.

"You want the gag to be a thing that unites the child together with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Of Shared Laughter

Gathering to experience shared laughter is not only ancient, scientists say, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others at the holiday table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a really primordial mammalian play vocalisation," explains a professor.

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

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

"The people you talk to, and share laughter with, it results in increased levels of endorphin uptake," she continues.

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to reduce stress and pain and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a truly awful Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," she states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly important work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you care about."

What Occurs Inside the Mind?

But what is actually happening inside the brain when we listen to a gag?

A tremendous amount occurs in reaction to humour, it turns out.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which indicates which areas of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to chart the regions that get more blood flow.

The research entails scanning the minds of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a collection of funny phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we observed a very fascinating pattern of neural activity," notes the professor.

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the brain responsible for hearing and understanding language, but also brain regions involved in both preparation and starting motion and those involved in vision and recall.

Combine all of this together, and people listening to a joke have a complex set of brain responses that underpin the amusement we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Scientists discovered that when a humorous word is paired with chuckles there is a greater reaction in the mind than the same word when followed by a neutral sound.

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

It indicates people are not just responding to funny jokes, they are responding to the amusement that accompanies them.

Amusement, according to the expert, can be contagious.

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

"People laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she says, "and you laugh further when you are fond of them or love them."

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

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

The Search for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Is it possible to find the ultimate joke?

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

In 2001, a professor established a research project for the world's most humorous joke.

Over tens of thousands of gags later, with ratings lodged by 350,000 people globally, he has a better understanding than most as to what succeeds and what does not.

The perfect festive cracker joke needs to be short, he says.

"But they also be bad gags, puns that cause us to groan," he adds.

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

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the joke's fault, not yours.

"The fascinating part about the Christmas cracker puns is that none of us find them funny.

"It creates a shared moment around the table and I think it's lovely."