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

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

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a firm that produces supplies for social events. Its repertoire includes festive crackers.

The firm's founder grins, almost sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has made the cut and will appear in upcoming 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 holiday cracker pun is not the same as a good joke per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the communal laughter of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, kids and possibly friends.

"You want the gag to be something that brings the eight-year-old in harmony with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Laughter

Coming together to experience communal amusement is not only nothing new, experts say, it is probably to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others around the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammal play vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

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

Researchers have found that a absence of such interactions can significantly harm mental and physical well-being.

"Those you converse with, and laugh with, it results in increased amounts of 'happy chemical' release," she adds.

Endorphins are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in reaction to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a foolish joke with a Christmas cracker," the expert says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the truly vital work of making, maintaining the connections you have with the people you care about."

Which Happens Inside the Brain?

But what is actually happening inside the brain when we listen to a joke?

An awful lot occurs in response to comedy, it turns out.

Using brain scanning technology, a type of neural imager which shows which parts of the brain are more active, scientists have been able to chart the areas that receive more blood flow.

Testing entails imaging the minds of healthy participants and then exposing them to a collection of humorous phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we got a really interesting pattern of activation," says the professor.

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

Put all of this as a whole, and people hearing a joke have a sophisticated series of neural responses that support the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

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

"This was in areas of the brain that you would use to contort your expression into a smile or a laugh," she says.

It indicates we are not just reacting to funny jokes, they are reacting to the amusement that accompanies them.

Laughter, says the professor, can be contagious.

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

"You laugh harder 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 says, the feel-good factor is more probable to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the reaction to it.

"The laughter is key. The gag is the terrible Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to chuckle together."

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the ultimate joke?

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

In 2001, a psychologist set up a scientific search for the world's most humorous gag.

More than 40,000 gags later, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a clearer idea than most as to what works and what fails.

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

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

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

"The reason is that if nobody finds it funny – it's the joke's fault, not yours.

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

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