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

This quip is greeted with groans that echo through a warehouse in London.

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a company that makes products for social events. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

The firm's owner grins, nearly sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has been selected and will feature in future crackers.

"You measure the joke by the number of moans and the intensity of the groans around the table," the founder says.

The secret to a great Christmas cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up joke per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the communal amusement of the holiday dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially friends.

"The goal is for the gag to be a thing that brings the child in harmony with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Behind Communal Amusement

Coming together to enjoy shared laughter is not only ancient, experts say, it is probably to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with people at the Christmas table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a truly ancient mammalian play vocalisation," says a professor.

Shared laughter, she says, aids in make and maintain social bonds between individuals.

Scientists have discovered that a lack of these interactions can seriously harm mental and physical health.

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it results in increased amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," she adds.

These natural chemicals are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a truly terrible festive cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a foolish joke with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are actually performing a lot of the truly important task of making, maintaining the connections you have with the people you care about."

Which Occurs In the Mind?

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

An awful lot occurs in response to comedy, it transpires.

Using brain scanning technology, a kind of neural imager which shows which parts of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to map the regions that receive more blood.

The research entails imaging the minds of healthy participants and then exposing them to a collection of funny phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

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

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the brain responsible for hearing and interpreting speech, but also neural regions involved in both preparation and initiating movement and those linked to sight and recall.

Put these elements together, and people hearing a pun have a sophisticated series of brain responses that underpin the laughter we hear.

The Infectious Power of Laughter

Scientists discovered that when a funny phrase is combined with chuckles there is a greater response in the brain than the same word when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in parts of the mind that you would employ to contort your expression into a grin or a chuckle," she says.

It indicates people are not just responding to humorous words, they are responding to the amusement that accompanies them.

Amusement, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the laughter found around a Christmas gathering?

"You laugh more when you know others," she says, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she explains, the positive effect is more probable to be triggered not by the gag itself, but from the response to it.

"It's the laughter. The joke is the terrible holiday cracker joke, and it's just a reason to chuckle together."

The Quest for the Perfect Festive Pun

Is it possible to find the ultimate joke?

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

Years ago, a psychologist established a scientific search for the planet's most humorous joke.

More than tens of thousands of gags later, with ratings provided by 350,000 people globally, he has a better understanding than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

The perfect festive cracker pun must be brief, he explains.

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

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

"The reason is that if no-one finds it funny – it's the gag's shortcoming, not yours.

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

"It creates a shared moment around the table and I believe it's lovely."