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

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

We're at a joke-testing session with a firm that produces supplies for social events. Its catalogue includes festive crackers.

The firm's owner smiles, nearly sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has made the cut and will appear in future crackers.

"You measure the joke by the number of moans and the intensity of the groans at the table," she explains.

The key to a great holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a good joke per se. It is all about the setting - in this case, the communal laughter of the Christmas meal with elders, kids and possibly neighbours.

"The goal is for the gag to be a thing that brings the child together with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Amusement

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

"Therefore when you are laughing with others around the holiday table you are dropping into what's almost certainly a truly ancient mammalian play sound," explains a professor.

Shared amusement, she says, helps forge and strengthen social bonds between people.

Scientists have found that a lack of these interactions can seriously damage mental and physical well-being.

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it results in enhanced levels of endorphin release," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in response to enjoyable experiences, such as chuckling with loved ones over a particularly awful festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," she states. "You are actually doing a lot of the really vital task of making, maintaining the connections you have with the people you love."

What Occurs Inside the Mind?

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

A tremendous amount happens in reaction to comedy, it turns out.

Employing brain scanning technology, a type of neural imager which indicates which areas of the brain are more active, scientists have been able to map the regions that get more blood.

Testing involves scanning the minds of volunteer participants and then exposing them to a database of funny words, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we observed a really fascinating activation pattern of activation," says the neuroscientist.

A joke activates not just the areas of the mind responsible for hearing and interpreting speech, but also neural areas involved in both planning and starting movement and those involved in vision and memory.

Put these elements as a whole, and individuals listening to a pun have a sophisticated set of neural reactions that underpin the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

Scientists found that when a humorous phrase is paired with laughter there is a greater reaction in the brain than the same phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the brain that you would employ to contort your face into a smile or a chuckle," she says.

It means people are not just reacting to humorous words, they are responding to the amusement that follows them.

Laughter, according to the expert, can be contagious.

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

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

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

"The laughter is key. The gag is the dreadful holiday cracker joke, and it's just a pretext to chuckle together."

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever discover the perfect gag?

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

In 2001, a psychologist established a research search for the planet's funniest gag.

Over 40,000 jokes submitted, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a clearer idea than most as to what works and what does not.

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

"But they also be poor gags, jokes that make us groan," he adds.

The increasingly "terrible" the joke, he says the better.

"This is because if nobody laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not your own.

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

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