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

This quip is met by moans that resonate through a storage facility in the capital.

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that produces supplies for social events. Its catalogue features Christmas crackers.

The company's founder smiles, nearly sheepishly at the gag. But the joke has made the cut and will feature in future crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the volume of groans and the intensity of the groans around the table," she says.

The secret to a good Christmas cracker pun is not the same as a stand-up gag per se. It is all about the setting - in this instance, the shared amusement of the Christmas dinner table with elders, kids and possibly friends.

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

The Neuroscience Behind Communal Amusement

Gathering to experience communal amusement is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others at the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a really ancient mammalian play sound," says a neuroscience expert.

Communal amusement, she explains, aids in make and maintain social connections between people.

Researchers have found that a absence of such interactions can seriously harm mental and physical health.

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it leads to enhanced levels of 'happy chemical' uptake," the professor adds.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with friends over a particularly awful Christmas cracker joke.

"It's not simply laughing at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact doing a lot of the truly important task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you care about."

Which Occurs Inside the Brain?

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

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

Employing brain scanning technology, a type of neural imager which shows which parts of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to chart the regions that get more blood flow.

The research involves scanning the brains of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

"During the study we got a really fascinating pattern of neural activity," says the professor.

A joke activates not just the areas of the mind in charge of auditory processing and interpreting speech, but also neural regions associated with both planning and initiating movement and those linked to vision and memory.

Combine these elements as a whole, and individuals listening to a pun have a complex set of brain reactions that support the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Power of Laughter

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

"This activation occurred in areas of the brain that you would use to move your face into a grin or a chuckle," she says.

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

Laughter, according to the expert, can be contagious.

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

"You laugh more when you know people," she notes, "and you laugh more when you like them or care for them."

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

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

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the perfect joke?

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

In 2001, a psychologist established a scientific project for the planet's funniest joke.

Over 40,000 gags submitted, with ratings lodged by 350,000 participants around the world, he has a better understanding than most as to what succeeds and what does not.

The ideal Christmas cracker joke needs to be brief, he says.

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

The increasingly "awful" the gag, he states the more effective.

"The reason is that if nobody 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 find them funny.

"That's a common experience at the table and I think it's wonderful."