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"What was the price did Father Christmas's sled cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This one-liner is greeted with moans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a firm that produces supplies for social events. Its catalogue includes festive crackers.

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

"The success is gauged by the gag by the volume of groans and the loudness of the groans at the table," she explains.

The secret to a great holiday cracker pun is not the same as a stand-up joke in itself. It is all about the context - in this case, the shared amusement of the holiday meal with elders, children and potentially friends.

"You want the joke to be something that brings the eight-year-old in harmony with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Behind Communal Laughter

Gathering to experience shared amusement is not only ancient, experts argue, it is probably to be pre-human.

"So when you are chuckling with people at the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's very likely a truly ancient mammalian social sound," says a professor.

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

Researchers have found that a absence of these interactions can significantly damage mental and physical health.

"Those you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to increased amounts of endorphin release," she continues.

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly terrible festive cracker joke.

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

Which Happens Inside the Brain?

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

An awful lot occurs in response to comedy, it turns out.

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

The research involves imaging the minds of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

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

A joke stimulates not just the parts of the brain in charge of hearing and interpreting language, but also neural regions involved in both preparation and starting movement and those involved in vision and memory.

Put all of this together, and individuals hearing a joke have a sophisticated set of neural reactions that support the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a humorous phrase is combined with chuckles there is a greater reaction in the mind than the same word when followed by a neutral sound.

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

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

Amusement, according to the expert, can be infectious.

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

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she notes, "and laughter increases more when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she says, the positive factor is more probable to be triggered not by the gag itself, but from the response to it.

"The laughter is key. The joke is the terrible Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a reason to chuckle together."

The Search for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the ultimate joke?

Likely not, but that has not prevented experts from trying to.

In 2001, a professor established a research search for the world's funniest joke.

More than 40,000 gags later, with scores lodged by 350,000 people around the world, he has a better understanding than many as to what succeeds and what does not.

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

"But they also need to be poor gags, puns that make us groan," he adds.

The more "terrible" the joke, he says the better.

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

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

"It creates a common moment at the gathering and I believe it's lovely."