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

This one-liner is greeted with moans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

This describes a joke-testing session with a company that produces supplies for social events. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

The company's owner smiles, nearly sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has been selected and will appear in future crackers.

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

The secret to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the same as a stand-up gag per se. It is entirely about the context - in this case, the shared laughter of the Christmas meal with grandparents, children and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the joke to be something that brings the child together with the grandparent," she adds.

The Science Behind Shared Laughter

Gathering to experience shared amusement is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"So when you are laughing with others at the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really ancient mammal play sound," says a neuroscience expert.

Communal laughter, she says, helps forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Scientists have found that a absence of such interactions can seriously harm mental and physical health.

"Those you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to increased levels of 'happy chemical' release," the professor continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a truly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just laughing at a foolish pun with a holiday cracker," she states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly vital task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you love."

What Occurs In the Mind?

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

An awful lot happens in reaction to humour, it transpires.

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of neural imager which shows which parts of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to map the areas that get more blood flow.

The research involves imaging the brains of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"During the study we observed a really fascinating activation pattern of neural activity," notes the professor.

A gag stimulates not just the areas of the mind in charge of auditory processing and interpreting language, but also brain areas associated with both planning and initiating movement and those involved in vision and memory.

Put these elements as a whole, and individuals hearing a pun have a complex series of brain responses that support the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

Scientists discovered that when a funny word is paired with laughter there is a stronger response in the mind than the same phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would employ to move your face into a grin or a chuckle," the professor explains.

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

Laughter, says the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the laughter heard at a Christmas table?

"You laugh harder when you know people," she notes, "and laughter increases more when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she says, the positive factor is more likely to be triggered not by the gag itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Is it possible to find the ultimate gag?

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

Years ago, a professor established a research search for the planet's most humorous joke.

Over 40,000 jokes submitted, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a better understanding than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

The ideal festive cracker joke needs to be brief, he says.

"But they also need to be bad gags, puns that cause us to moan," he continues.

The increasingly "awful" the gag, he says the more effective.

"The reason is that if no-one laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not your own.

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

"That's a common moment around the gathering and I believe it's lovely."