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

This joke is greeted with moans that echo through a warehouse in London.

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that makes products for gatherings. Its repertoire includes festive crackers.

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

"You measure the gag by the volume of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

The secret to a good holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up joke in itself. It is entirely about the context - in this case, the communal laughter of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, children and possibly neighbours.

"You want the gag to be something that unites the child together with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Shared Amusement

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

"Therefore when you are laughing with people at the Christmas table you are dropping into what's very likely a really ancient mammalian social vocalisation," says a professor.

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

Researchers have discovered that a absence of such interactions can seriously harm mental and physical well-being.

"Those you converse with, and laugh with, it results in enhanced amounts of endorphin uptake," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly awful Christmas cracker gag.

"It's not simply laughing at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," the expert says. "You are actually performing a lot of the really important task of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you care about."

Which Occurs Inside the Mind?

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

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of brain scanner which indicates which parts of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to chart the areas that receive more blood flow.

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

"In the scanner we observed a really interesting activation pattern of activation," notes the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the areas of the mind in charge of hearing and understanding language, but also neural regions involved in both planning and starting motion and those linked to vision and recall.

Combine all of this together, and people hearing a joke have a complex series of brain responses that support the laughter we hear.

The Infectious Power of Laughter

Researchers found that when a humorous word is paired with laughter there is a stronger response in the mind than the identical phrase when accompanied by a neutral sound.

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

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

Laughter, according to the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the laughter found at a Christmas gathering?

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

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

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

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the ultimate joke?

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

In 2001, a professor set up a research search for the world's funniest gag.

Over 40,000 gags submitted, with scores provided by 350,000 participants around the world, he has a clearer understanding than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

The perfect Christmas cracker joke needs to be short, he says.

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

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

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

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

"That's a shared moment around the table and I believe it's wonderful."