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"What was the price did Father Christmas's sled cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

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

We're at a joke-testing meeting with a company that produces products for gatherings. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

The company's founder grins, nearly sheepishly at the joke. But the joke has made the cut and will appear in upcoming crackers.

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

The key to a great holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up joke per se. It is all about the context - in this case, the shared amusement of the holiday meal with grandparents, kids and possibly friends.

"You want the gag to be something that brings the child in harmony with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Of Shared Laughter

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

"Therefore when you are laughing with people around the holiday table you are engaging in what's very likely a truly ancient mammal social vocalisation," says a professor.

Communal laughter, she explains, helps forge and strengthen social bonds between people.

Scientists have found that a absence of such interactions can seriously harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

"The people you talk to, and share laughter with, it results in enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," she continues.

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to reduce stress and pain and in response to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with friends over a particularly awful Christmas cracker gag.

"You're not just chuckling at a foolish joke with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly vital task of making, maintaining the connections you have with the people you love."

Which Occurs Inside the Mind?

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

An awful lot occurs in response to comedy, it transpires.

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of neural imager which shows which areas of the brain are more active, scientists have been able to chart the regions that get more blood flow.

Testing involves scanning the minds of healthy subjects and then exposing them to a database of humorous words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a really interesting pattern of neural activity," says the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the areas of the brain responsible for auditory processing and understanding speech, but also neural regions involved in both planning and starting motion and those linked to vision and recall.

Put these elements as a whole, and people listening to a joke have a complex set of neural responses that support the laughter we hear.

The Infectious Power of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a humorous phrase is paired with laughter there is a greater reaction in the mind than the identical 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 says.

It indicates we are not just responding to funny words, they are responding to the laughter that follows them.

Laughter, says the expert, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles found around a holiday gathering?

"People laugh more when you know others," she notes, "and laughter increases more when you like them or love them."

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

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

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Is it possible to discover the perfect gag?

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

In 2001, a professor established a scientific search for the world's funniest gag.

Over 40,000 gags later, with ratings provided by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

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

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

The more "awful" the gag, he says the more effective.

"The reason is that if no-one finds it funny – it's the gag's fault, not yours.

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

"That's a common moment at the gathering and I think it's lovely."