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

This joke is greeted with moans that resonate through a warehouse in London.

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that produces supplies for gatherings. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

The company's owner grins, nearly sheepishly at the joke. But the joke has been selected and will appear in upcoming crackers.

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

The key to a great holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a good joke per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the communal laughter of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially neighbours.

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

The Science Behind Communal Laughter

Coming together to enjoy communal laughter is not only nothing new, scientists say, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people around the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammalian social sound," says a neuroscience expert.

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

Scientists have discovered that a absence of such interactions can significantly damage mental and physical health.

"The people you converse with, and laugh with, it results in enhanced levels of 'happy chemical' uptake," she continues.

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as chuckling with loved ones over a truly terrible festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply chuckling at a foolish joke with a holiday cracker," she says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really important work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you care about."

Which Happens Inside the Brain?

But what is actually happening within the mind when we hear a joke?

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

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of neural imager which indicates which areas of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to chart the areas that receive more blood.

Testing entails imaging the brains of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a database of humorous phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we observed a really fascinating activation pattern of neural activity," notes the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the parts of the mind in charge of auditory processing and understanding language, but also neural areas associated with both planning and initiating movement and those involved in sight and memory.

Combine these elements as a whole, and individuals hearing a joke have a complex series of neural responses that support the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

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

"This was in parts of the mind that you would employ to move your face into a grin or a chuckle," she explains.

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

Amusement, says the expert, can be contagious.

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

"People laugh harder when you know people," she says, "and you laugh more when you like them or love them."

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

"It's the laughter. The gag is the terrible holiday cracker joke, and it's just a pretext to laugh together."

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the ultimate joke?

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

Years ago, a professor established a research search for the planet's most humorous joke.

Over tens of thousands of gags submitted, with ratings provided by 350,000 participants around the world, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

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

"They must also be bad jokes, puns that make us moan," he adds.

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

"The reason is that if no-one finds it funny – it's the joke's shortcoming, not your own.

"The fascinating part about the holiday cracker puns is that none of us find them humorous.

"That's a shared experience around the gathering and I believe it's lovely."