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

This quip is met by moans that echo through a storage facility in London.

We're at a joke-testing session with a firm that makes products for gatherings. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

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

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

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

"The goal is for the joke to be a thing that unites the eight-year-old in harmony with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Of Shared Amusement

Coming together to experience communal amusement is not only nothing new, scientists say, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others around the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really ancient mammalian play sound," explains a neuroscience expert.

Shared amusement, she explains, helps forge and strengthen social bonds between individuals.

Scientists have found that a absence of these social exchanges can significantly harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

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

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a particularly awful festive cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," she says. "You are actually doing a lot of the really important task of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you care about."

What Occurs Inside the Brain?

But what is actually taking place inside the brain when we listen to a gag?

A tremendous amount occurs in response to comedy, it transpires.

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

The research involves imaging the brains of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a collection of funny phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded laughter.

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

A gag activates not just the areas of the mind responsible for hearing and understanding language, but also brain regions associated with both preparation and initiating motion and those linked to sight and memory.

Combine these elements together, and individuals hearing a joke have a complex set of brain responses that support the laughter we experience.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a funny word is paired with laughter there is a greater response in the brain than the identical word when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in areas of the mind that you would employ to contort your face into a grin or a laugh," she says.

It means we are not just responding to humorous words, they are responding to the laughter that accompanies them.

Amusement, according to the professor, can be infectious.

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

"People laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she says, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she explains, the positive factor is more likely to be triggered not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Search for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Is it possible to find the ultimate gag?

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

Years ago, a psychologist set up a scientific search for the planet's most humorous joke.

More than tens of thousands of jokes later, with ratings provided by hundreds of thousands of people globally, he has a better idea than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

The perfect Christmas cracker pun needs to be brief, he explains.

"But they also be bad jokes, puns that cause us to groan," he adds.

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

"This is because if no-one finds it funny – it's the gag's shortcoming, not yours.

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

"It creates a common moment at the table and I believe it's wonderful."