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

This joke is greeted with groans that resonate through a storage facility in the capital.

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a company that produces products for gatherings. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

The company's founder smiles, almost sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has made the cut and will feature in future crackers.

"The success is gauged by the gag by the volume of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," the founder says.

The secret to a good holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up joke in itself. It is all about the setting - in this case, the communal laughter of the Christmas dinner table with elders, kids and potentially friends.

"The goal is for the gag to be a thing that unites the eight-year-old in harmony with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Shared Laughter

Coming together to experience shared laughter is not only ancient, experts say, it is probably to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others at the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a really ancient mammalian social vocalisation," explains a professor.

Shared laughter, she explains, helps forge and strengthen social connections between people.

Researchers have discovered that a lack of these social exchanges can significantly harm both psychological and bodily health.

"The people you talk to, and share laughter with, it results in enhanced levels of endorphin release," she adds.

Endorphins 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 truly terrible festive cracker joke.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are actually performing a lot of the really important task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you care about."

What Occurs In the Mind?

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

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

Employing brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the regions that get more blood.

The research involves scanning the minds of volunteer participants and then exposing them to a database of funny words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

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

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the mind responsible for auditory processing and interpreting language, but also neural areas associated with both planning and initiating movement and those linked to sight and recall.

Combine these elements as a whole, and people listening to a joke have a sophisticated series of brain reactions that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Laughter

Researchers found that when a funny word is paired with chuckles there is a greater reaction in the brain than the identical phrase when followed by a non-emotional sound.

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

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

Laughter, according to the professor, can be contagious.

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

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

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

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

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Is it possible to discover the ultimate joke?

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

Years ago, a psychologist established a scientific project for the world's most humorous gag.

Over tens of thousands of gags submitted, with scores lodged by 350,000 participants globally, he has a better understanding than most as to what works and what fails.

The perfect Christmas cracker pun must be short, he explains.

"They must also need to be bad gags, jokes that make us groan," he adds.

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

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

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

"That's a common experience around the table and I think it's lovely."