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"What was the price did Father Christmas's sleigh cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This quip is greeted with groans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

This describes a joke-testing session with a firm that makes products for social events. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

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

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

The key to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up joke in itself. It is all about the setting - in this instance, the communal laughter of the holiday meal with grandparents, kids and potentially friends.

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

The Neuroscience Behind Shared Laughter

Gathering to experience shared amusement is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are laughing with people at the Christmas table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a truly ancient mammal play sound," explains a professor.

Shared laughter, she says, helps forge and strengthen social bonds between individuals.

Researchers have found that a absence of these interactions can significantly damage both psychological and bodily health.

"Those you converse with, and laugh with, it results in increased amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," she continues.

Endorphins are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly awful Christmas cracker gag.

"It's not simply laughing at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert says. "You are actually doing a lot of the really vital work of building, preserving the connections you have with those you love."

What Happens In the Mind?

But what is truly taking place within the brain when we hear a gag?

A tremendous amount happens in reaction to humour, it transpires.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of brain scanner which shows which areas of the brain are more active, researchers have been able to map the areas that get more blood.

The research involves scanning the brains of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we observed a really fascinating pattern of activation," says the neuroscientist.

A joke activates not just the parts of the brain responsible for hearing and interpreting language, but also neural areas associated with both preparation and initiating movement and those involved in vision and recall.

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

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Scientists found that when a humorous word is combined with chuckles there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the same word when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would employ to move your face into a smile or a laugh," the professor explains.

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

Amusement, according to the professor, can be contagious.

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

"You laugh more when you know others," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she explains, the positive factor is more probable to be triggered not by the joke 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 laugh as a group."

The Quest for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever discover the perfect joke?

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

In 2001, a professor established a scientific search for the planet's most humorous gag.

More than 40,000 gags submitted, with scores provided by 350,000 participants around the world, he has a clearer idea than most as to what works and what does not.

The perfect festive cracker joke must be brief, he explains.

"They must also be bad jokes, jokes that make us groan," he continues.

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

"The reason is that if no-one laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not yours.

"The fascinating part about the Christmas cracker puns is that not one person considers them funny.

"It creates a shared moment around the table and I believe it's lovely."