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

This joke is greeted with groans that echo through a storage facility in London.

This describes a humor-evaluation session with a firm that makes products for social events. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

The company's founder smiles, almost sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has made the cut and will feature in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the number of moans and the intensity of the groans at the table," she says.

The key to a great Christmas cracker joke is not the identical as a good joke in itself. It is entirely about the context - in this case, the communal laughter of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially neighbours.

"The goal is for the gag to be something that unites the child in harmony with the grandparent," she adds.

The Science Of Communal Laughter

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

"Therefore when you are laughing with people around the Christmas table you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really ancient mammalian play vocalisation," says a professor.

Shared amusement, she explains, helps forge and strengthen social connections between people.

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

"Those you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to increased amounts of endorphin uptake," the professor continues.

Endorphins are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with friends over a truly awful Christmas cracker gag.

"It's not simply laughing at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really important task of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you love."

What Occurs Inside the Brain?

But what is actually taking place within the mind when we listen to a gag?

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of neural imager which indicates which areas of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the areas that get more blood flow.

The research involves imaging the brains of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a database of humorous words, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we observed a very interesting activation pattern of activation," says the professor.

A joke activates not just the parts of the mind in charge of hearing and understanding language, but also neural areas associated with both preparation and starting motion and those linked to vision and recall.

Put all of this together, and individuals listening to a pun have a sophisticated set of neural responses that support the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a humorous phrase is combined with laughter there is a greater response in the brain than the identical word when followed by a non-emotional sound.

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

It means we are not just responding to funny words, they are responding to the amusement that follows them.

Amusement, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the laughter found at a holiday table?

"People laugh more when you know people," she notes, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or love them."

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

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

The Search for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the ultimate gag?

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

In 2001, a psychologist set up a research search for the world's funniest joke.

Over 40,000 gags later, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what works and what does not.

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

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

The more "awful" the joke, he states the better.

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

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

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