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

This one-liner is met by moans that resonate through a storage facility in London.

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

The company's founder grins, nearly apologetically at the gag. But the pun has been selected and will feature in future crackers.

"You measure the gag by the volume of groans and the intensity of the groans around the table," she says.

The secret to a good holiday cracker pun is not the same as a good gag in itself. It is all about the context - in this instance, the communal amusement of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, kids and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the joke to be a thing that unites the eight-year-old together with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Shared Laughter

Coming together to enjoy shared amusement is not only ancient, scientists say, it is probably to be pre-human.

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

Shared laughter, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between people.

Researchers have found that a absence of these social exchanges can significantly damage both psychological and bodily health.

"Those you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced levels of endorphin release," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly awful Christmas cracker joke.

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish joke with a Christmas cracker," she states. "You are actually performing a lot of the truly important task of building, preserving the connections you have with those you care about."

What Happens Inside the Brain?

But what is actually taking place within the brain when we hear a joke?

A tremendous amount occurs in reaction to humour, it transpires.

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which shows which areas of the brain are working harder, researchers have been able to map the regions that get more blood.

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

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

A joke activates not just the parts of the mind in charge of hearing and understanding language, but also brain regions associated with both planning and starting motion and those involved in sight and memory.

Combine all of this together, and individuals listening to a joke have a sophisticated set of neural responses that support the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a funny phrase is combined with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the identical word when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would use to contort your face into a grin or a laugh," she explains.

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

Amusement, according to the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles heard at a holiday table?

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with people," she notes, "and you laugh more when you like them or love them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she says, the positive effect is more likely to be triggered not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Quest for the Ideal Festive Pun

Will we ever find the perfect joke?

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

Years ago, a psychologist set up a scientific project for the planet's most humorous joke.

More than 40,000 gags submitted, with ratings lodged by 350,000 participants globally, he has a better idea than most as to what works and what does not.

The ideal Christmas cracker pun needs to be brief, he explains.

"But they also be bad gags, jokes that make us groan," he continues.

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

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the gag's fault, not your own.

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

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