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"How much did Father Christmas's sleigh cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This joke is greeted with groans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a company that produces products for social events. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

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

"You measure the joke by the volume of moans and the loudness of the groans at the table," she says.

The key to a good holiday cracker joke is not the same as a stand-up gag per se. It is all about the setting - in this instance, the communal amusement of the Christmas dinner table with elders, children and possibly friends.

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

The Science Of Shared Amusement

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

"Therefore when you are laughing with people around the holiday dinner you are engaging in what's almost certainly a really ancient mammalian play vocalisation," says a neuroscience expert.

Shared amusement, she explains, helps forge and strengthen social bonds between people.

Researchers have found that a lack of these social exchanges can seriously harm mental and physical health.

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it results in enhanced levels of endorphin release," the professor continues.

Endorphins are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as chuckling with loved ones over a truly terrible festive cracker joke.

"You're not just laughing at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly vital work of building, preserving the connections you have with those you love."

What Happens Inside the Mind?

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

A tremendous amount happens in reaction to comedy, it transpires.

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of brain scanner which indicates which parts of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to chart the areas that get more blood flow.

Testing entails imaging the brains of healthy subjects and then exposing them to a collection of humorous phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

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

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the brain in charge of hearing and interpreting speech, but also brain regions involved in both planning and starting motion and those linked to vision and recall.

Put all of this as a whole, and people hearing a pun have a sophisticated set of brain responses that underpin the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Researchers found that when a humorous phrase is paired with chuckles there is a stronger response in the brain than the same phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

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

It means people are not just responding to humorous jokes, they are reacting to the laughter that follows them.

Amusement, says the expert, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles found around a Christmas table?

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

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

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

The Search for the Ideal Festive Pun

Is it possible to find the perfect joke?

Probably not, but that has not prevented researchers from trying to.

In 2001, a psychologist established a research project for the planet's most humorous gag.

Over tens of thousands of gags submitted, with scores provided by 350,000 participants around the world, he has a better understanding than many as to what succeeds and what does not.

The perfect Christmas cracker joke needs to be brief, he explains.

"But they also be bad jokes, puns that cause us to moan," he continues.

The increasingly "awful" the joke, he states the better.

"The reason is that if nobody laughs – it's the gag's fault, not your own.

"What's interesting about the holiday cracker jokes is that none of us find them funny.

"It creates a common experience around the table and I think it's lovely."