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"How much did Father Christmas's sleigh cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This one-liner is greeted with moans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a firm that produces supplies for social events. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

The firm's founder grins, almost sheepishly at the gag. 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 intensity of the groans around the table," the founder explains.

The secret to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the same as a good joke in itself. It is all about the context - in this instance, the shared laughter of the Christmas dinner table with elders, children and possibly neighbours.

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

The Science Of Communal Amusement

Gathering to experience shared laughter is not only nothing new, scientists say, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others at the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a truly ancient mammal play sound," explains a professor.

Shared amusement, she explains, helps make and maintain social bonds between individuals.

Researchers have discovered that a absence of such interactions can significantly harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

"The people you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to increased levels of endorphin uptake," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a particularly terrible festive cracker joke.

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish joke with a Christmas cracker," she says. "You are actually performing a lot of the really important task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with the people you care about."

What Occurs In the Brain?

But what is actually taking place inside the mind when we hear a joke?

A tremendous amount happens in reaction to humour, it transpires.

Using brain scanning technology, a type of neural imager which indicates which areas of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the regions that get more blood flow.

The research involves imaging the minds of healthy subjects and then subjecting them to a database of humorous words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a really interesting pattern of neural activity," says the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the brain responsible for hearing and interpreting speech, but also brain regions associated with both preparation and initiating motion and those linked to vision and recall.

Combine these elements together, and individuals hearing a joke have a complex set of brain reactions that support the amusement we experience.

The Contagious Power of Laughter

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

"This activation occurred in areas of the brain that you would use to move your face into a smile or a laugh," she says.

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

Amusement, according to the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the laughter heard at a holiday gathering?

"People laugh more when you are familiar with people," she notes, "and laughter increases more when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she explains, the positive effect is more probable to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

"The laughter is key. The joke is the dreadful holiday cracker pun, and it's just a reason to chuckle as a group."

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the ultimate joke?

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

In 2001, a psychologist established a research project for the world's most humorous joke.

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

The ideal festive cracker pun needs to be brief, he explains.

"But they also need to be poor jokes, jokes that make us moan," he continues.

The more "terrible" the gag, he states the better.

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

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

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