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

This one-liner is greeted with moans that echo through a warehouse in London.

We're at a joke-testing session with a company that makes supplies for social events. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

The firm's owner grins, nearly sheepishly at the gag. But the joke has been selected and will feature in upcoming crackers.

"You measure the joke by the volume of groans and the loudness of the groans at the table," she says.

The key to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up gag in itself. It is entirely about the context - in this instance, the shared laughter of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, children and possibly friends.

"You want the gag to be something that unites the child in harmony with the grandparent," she states.

The Neuroscience Behind Communal Amusement

Coming together to experience shared laughter is not only nothing new, scientists argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with people at the holiday table you are dropping into what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammal play vocalisation," says a professor.

Communal laughter, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between people.

Scientists have discovered that a lack of such interactions can significantly harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

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

These natural chemicals are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as chuckling with friends over a particularly terrible festive cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really vital task of building, preserving the connections you have with those you love."

What Occurs In the Brain?

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

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

Employing brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the brain are working harder, researchers have been able to map the areas that receive more blood.

Testing entails scanning the minds of healthy subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of funny phrases, paired with either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"During the study we got a really interesting pattern of neural activity," notes the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the mind responsible for auditory processing and understanding language, but also brain regions involved in both planning and initiating movement and those linked to vision and recall.

Combine all of this together, and people hearing a joke have a sophisticated set of neural responses that support the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Scientists discovered that when a funny word is combined with laughter there is a greater response in the brain than the identical phrase when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This was in parts of the brain that you would employ to move your expression into a grin or a chuckle," the professor says.

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the laughter heard around a holiday gathering?

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

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she says, the feel-good factor is more probable to be triggered not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever find the perfect gag?

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

Years ago, a professor established a scientific project for the world's funniest gag.

Over 40,000 gags later, with ratings provided by 350,000 participants around the world, he has a better idea than many as to what succeeds and what does not.

The perfect festive cracker pun must be short, he says.

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

The more "terrible" the gag, he states the better.

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

"The fascinating part about the Christmas cracker jokes is that none of us considers them funny.

"It creates a common moment at the table and I think it's lovely."