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

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

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

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

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

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

"The goal is for the joke to be something that unites the eight-year-old in harmony with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Science Behind Shared Amusement

Gathering to experience shared amusement is not only nothing new, experts say, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are laughing with people at the holiday table you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really primordial mammal play vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Shared laughter, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between people.

Researchers have discovered that a lack of such social exchanges can seriously damage mental and physical health.

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it results in increased amounts of endorphin release," the professor adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as chuckling with friends over a truly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

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

What Happens Inside the Mind?

But what is truly taking place within the brain when we listen to a joke?

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the brain are working harder, researchers have been able to chart the areas that get more blood flow.

Testing involves scanning the minds of volunteer participants and then exposing them to a database of funny words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we got a really interesting pattern of neural activity," says the professor.

A gag activates not just the areas of the brain responsible for auditory processing and interpreting language, but also neural regions associated with both preparation and starting motion and those linked to vision and memory.

Combine all of this together, and individuals hearing a pun have a complex series of neural reactions that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

Scientists discovered that when a humorous phrase is paired with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the identical word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This was in parts of the brain that you would use to move your expression into a smile or a laugh," the professor explains.

It means we are not just reacting to humorous jokes, they are responding to the laughter that follows them.

Laughter, says the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the laughter found around a holiday table?

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with people," she says, "and you laugh more when you like them or love them."

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

"The laughter is key. The gag is the terrible holiday cracker pun, and it's just a reason to laugh together."

The Quest for the Ideal Festive Pun

Will we ever find the ultimate joke?

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

Years ago, a psychologist set up a research search for the world's funniest gag.

More than tens of thousands of gags submitted, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a better idea than most as to what works and what does not.

The ideal Christmas cracker joke must be short, he says.

"But they also need to be poor jokes, jokes that make us moan," he continues.

The increasingly "awful" the gag, he states the better.

"The reason is that if nobody finds it funny – it's the gag's shortcoming, not yours.

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

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