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

This quip is met by groans that echo through a warehouse in London.

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that produces products for gatherings. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

The company's owner grins, almost apologetically at the gag. But the joke has been selected and will appear in future crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the number of moans and the loudness of the groans around the table," she says.

The secret to a great Christmas cracker joke is not the same as a good gag per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the communal amusement of the Christmas meal with elders, kids and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the joke to be something that unites the eight-year-old together with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Of Communal Amusement

Gathering to experience shared laughter is not only nothing new, scientists say, it is probably to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people around the Christmas table you are engaging in what's very likely a truly primordial mammalian play vocalisation," says a neuroscience expert.

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

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

"The people you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to enhanced amounts of endorphin uptake," she adds.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to reduce tension and discomfort and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly awful festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply laughing at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," she says. "You are actually doing a lot of the really vital task of making, maintaining the connections you have with the people you love."

What Occurs Inside the Brain?

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

A tremendous amount happens in response to humour, it turns out.

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of brain scanner which shows which parts of the brain are more active, scientists have been able to map the areas that receive more blood.

The research involves imaging the brains of healthy subjects and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a really interesting pattern of activation," notes the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the brain responsible for hearing and interpreting language, but also brain regions associated with both planning and starting motion and those involved in vision and memory.

Put these elements together, and people listening to a joke have a sophisticated series of neural reactions that support the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Laughter

Scientists discovered that when a humorous word is combined with chuckles there is a greater reaction in the mind than the same word when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the brain that you would use to move your expression into a grin or a laugh," she explains.

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

Laughter, says the expert, can be contagious.

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

"People laugh more when you are familiar with people," she notes, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good effect is more probable to be triggered not by the joke in itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Search for the Ideal Festive Pun

Is it possible to discover the perfect gag?

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

Years ago, a psychologist established a research search for the planet's most humorous gag.

Over 40,000 jokes later, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

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

"They must also need to be poor jokes, jokes that cause us to moan," he adds.

The increasingly "terrible" the gag, he states the better.

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

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

"That's a common experience around the table and I think it's wonderful."