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

This quip is greeted with moans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

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

The firm's owner smiles, nearly sheepishly at the gag. But the joke has made the cut and will appear in upcoming crackers.

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

The secret to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the identical as a good joke in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the communal amusement of the holiday meal with grandparents, children and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the gag to be something that unites the child in harmony with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Behind Shared Amusement

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

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people around the holiday table you are engaging in what's very likely a really ancient mammal play sound," says a neuroscience expert.

Shared amusement, she says, helps forge and strengthen social connections between people.

Researchers have found that a lack of these interactions can significantly damage both psychological and bodily well-being.

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it results in increased amounts of endorphin release," she adds.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with friends over a particularly terrible festive cracker joke.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," she says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the truly important task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you love."

Which Happens Inside the Mind?

But what is truly happening within the brain when we hear a joke?

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

Employing brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which shows which areas of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to map the areas that get more blood.

The research entails imaging the brains of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous phrases, paired with either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a very interesting pattern of neural activity," says the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the brain responsible for hearing and interpreting language, but also brain regions involved in both planning and starting motion and those linked to sight and recall.

Put all of this together, and people listening to a pun have a complex set of neural responses that support the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a humorous phrase is combined with laughter there is a greater reaction in the mind than the identical word when followed by a non-emotional sound.

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

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

Laughter, says the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the laughter heard around a Christmas gathering?

"People laugh harder when you know others," she says, "and you laugh further when you like them or care for them."

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

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

The Search for the Ideal Festive Pun

Is it possible to discover the ultimate gag?

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

In 2001, a professor established a scientific project for the world's most humorous gag.

More than tens of thousands of gags submitted, with ratings provided by 350,000 participants around the world, he has a better idea than most as to what works and what fails.

The ideal Christmas cracker pun must be brief, he explains.

"They must also need to be bad jokes, jokes that cause us to moan," he continues.

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

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

"What's interesting about the holiday cracker jokes is that none of us considers them funny.

"That's a shared moment around the gathering and I think it's lovely."