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"What was the price did Santa's sleigh cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This joke is met by groans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a joke-testing session with a firm that makes products for gatherings. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

The firm's owner grins, almost apologetically at the gag. But the joke has made the cut and will appear in future crackers.

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

The key to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the same as a stand-up joke in itself. It is all about the context - in this case, the shared laughter of the Christmas meal with grandparents, kids and potentially neighbours.

"You want the joke to be something that unites the eight-year-old together with the grandparent," she states.

The Neuroscience Behind Communal Amusement

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

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people around the holiday dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a truly ancient mammalian play sound," says a neuroscience expert.

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

Scientists have found that a absence of such social exchanges can significantly damage both psychological and bodily well-being.

"Those you talk to, and share laughter with, it results in enhanced levels of endorphin uptake," she continues.

Endorphins are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with friends over a particularly terrible Christmas cracker gag.

"You're not just chuckling at a foolish pun with a Christmas cracker," she says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really vital work of making, maintaining the connections you have with the people you love."

Which Occurs In the Brain?

But what is truly happening inside the mind when we hear a gag?

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

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of neural imager which shows which parts of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to map the areas that receive more blood flow.

Testing entails scanning the minds of volunteer subjects and then exposing them to a database of funny phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded laughter.

"During the study we observed a really fascinating pattern of activation," notes the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the parts of the mind responsible for hearing and interpreting language, but also brain areas involved in both planning and initiating motion and those involved in vision and memory.

Put these elements as a whole, and people hearing a joke have a complex series of brain responses that support the amusement we experience.

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

Scientists found that when a humorous word is combined with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the brain than the identical phrase when followed by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the brain that you would use to contort your face into a grin or a chuckle," she explains.

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

Amusement, according to the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles found at a Christmas table?

"You laugh more when you know others," she notes, "and you laugh more when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she explains, the feel-good effect is more likely to be caused not by the gag itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Search for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Is it possible to find the perfect joke?

Likely not, but that has not prevented researchers from attempting to.

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

More than tens of thousands of gags submitted, with ratings provided by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a clearer idea than most as to what succeeds and what does not.

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

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

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

"The reason is that if nobody laughs – it's the joke's shortcoming, not your own.

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

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