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

This one-liner is met by moans that resonate through a storage facility in the capital.

This describes a joke-testing session with a company that produces supplies for gatherings. Its catalogue features Christmas crackers.

The firm's founder smiles, nearly apologetically at the gag. But the joke has been selected and will appear in upcoming crackers.

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

The key to a great Christmas cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up gag per se. It is all about the context - in this instance, the shared laughter of the Christmas meal with elders, kids and potentially neighbours.

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

The Science Of Communal Laughter

Coming together to enjoy shared 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 dropping into what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammalian social sound," says a professor.

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

Scientists have found that a absence of these social exchanges can significantly damage both psychological and bodily health.

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it leads to enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' release," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in response to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a particularly awful Christmas cracker gag.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," she states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really vital task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with the people you care about."

What Happens Inside the Brain?

But what is truly happening within the mind when we listen to a gag?

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of neural imager which indicates which parts of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to map the regions that get more blood.

Testing entails scanning the minds of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we observed a very interesting pattern of neural activity," says the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the parts of the mind in charge of auditory processing and interpreting language, but also brain areas involved in both preparation and starting motion and those linked to sight and memory.

Combine all of this as a whole, and people listening to a pun have a sophisticated set of neural reactions that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Power of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a humorous phrase is combined with chuckles there is a greater response in the brain than the identical phrase when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the mind that you would use to move your expression into a grin or a chuckle," she explains.

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be infectious.

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

"You laugh more when you know others," she says, "and laughter increases further when you like them or care for them."

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

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

The Quest for the Perfect Festive Pun

Is it possible to find the perfect joke?

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

Years ago, a professor set up a scientific project for the world's most humorous gag.

Over tens of thousands of jokes later, with ratings provided by hundreds of thousands of people globally, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what works and what does not.

The ideal festive cracker pun must be short, he explains.

"They must also be bad gags, puns that cause us to groan," he adds.

The more "awful" the joke, he states the more effective.

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

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

"It creates a common moment around the gathering and I believe it's wonderful."