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"How much did Santa's sleigh cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This one-liner is met by groans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a firm that produces products for gatherings. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

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

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

The secret to a good Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up gag per se. It is all about the context - in this case, the communal laughter of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, kids and potentially friends.

"You want the gag to be something that unites the child in harmony with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Science Of Communal Amusement

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

"So when you are chuckling with people around the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammal play vocalisation," explains a professor.

Communal amusement, she explains, helps make and maintain social connections between individuals.

Researchers have discovered that a lack of these social exchanges can significantly harm both psychological and bodily health.

"The people you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to increased levels of 'happy chemical' uptake," the professor continues.

Endorphins are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a truly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just laughing at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," she says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really vital task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you love."

What Happens In the Brain?

But what is actually taking place within the mind when we hear a gag?

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which indicates which parts of the brain are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the areas that receive more blood flow.

Testing entails scanning the brains of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a database of funny phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded chuckles.

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

A joke activates not just the parts of the brain in charge of hearing and understanding speech, but also neural areas involved in both planning and initiating movement and those involved in vision and recall.

Put all of this as a whole, and individuals listening to a pun have a complex series of brain responses that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Power of Laughter

Scientists found that when a humorous phrase is paired with chuckles there is a stronger response in the brain than the identical word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This was in areas of the mind that you would use to move your face into a smile or a laugh," she explains.

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

Amusement, according to the professor, can be infectious.

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

"People laugh more when you are familiar with people," she says, "and you laugh further when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she says, the positive factor is more probable to be caused not by the joke in itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Quest for the Perfect Festive Pun

Is it possible to find the ultimate joke?

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

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

More than tens of thousands of jokes later, with ratings provided by hundreds of thousands of people globally, he has a better understanding than many as to what works and what does not.

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

"But they also need to be bad jokes, puns that make us moan," he adds.

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

"This is because if nobody finds it funny – it's the gag's fault, not your own.

"The fascinating part about the holiday cracker jokes is that not one person considers them funny.

"It creates a shared experience at the table and I think it's wonderful."