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

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

This describes a humor-evaluation session with a company that produces products for gatherings. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

The company's founder grins, almost sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has made the cut and will feature in future crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the number of moans and the loudness of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

The key to a good Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a good joke in itself. It is all about the context - in this instance, the shared amusement of the Christmas dinner table with elders, kids and potentially neighbours.

"The goal is for the gag to be a thing that brings the child in harmony with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Science Of Shared Laughter

Gathering to enjoy shared laughter is not only ancient, scientists say, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are laughing with others around the Christmas dinner you are dropping into what's very likely a truly ancient mammalian play sound," explains a professor.

Communal amusement, she says, helps make and maintain social bonds between individuals.

Researchers have discovered that a lack of such social exchanges can seriously damage both psychological and bodily health.

"The people you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to enhanced levels of 'happy chemical' release," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to reduce tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly terrible festive cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are actually performing a lot of the really vital task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you love."

What Happens Inside the Mind?

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

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

Using brain scanning technology, a kind of neural imager which indicates which parts of the brain are working harder, scientists have been able to map the regions that receive more blood flow.

The research entails imaging the minds of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a collection of funny words, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a really interesting activation pattern of neural activity," says the neuroscientist.

A gag stimulates not just the areas of the mind responsible for hearing and interpreting speech, but also neural areas associated with both preparation and initiating movement and those involved in sight and recall.

Combine these elements together, and people hearing a joke have a complex set of brain responses that underpin the amusement we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a humorous word is paired with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the same phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the brain that you would employ to contort your expression into a grin or a chuckle," the professor explains.

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

Amusement, according to the expert, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the laughter found around a holiday gathering?

"People laugh more when you know others," she notes, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she says, 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 terrible holiday cracker joke, and it's just a pretext to laugh as a group."

The Search for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the ultimate joke?

Probably not, but that has not stopped experts from trying to.

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

More than 40,000 gags later, with scores provided by 350,000 people globally, he has a better understanding than most as to what succeeds and what does not.

The perfect Christmas cracker pun needs to be short, he explains.

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

The increasingly "terrible" the joke, he says the more effective.

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

"What's interesting about the holiday cracker jokes is that not one person considers them funny.

"It creates a shared moment at the table and I believe it's lovely."