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

This quip is met by moans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that makes supplies for gatherings. Its repertoire includes festive crackers.

The firm's founder grins, nearly sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has made the cut and will appear in upcoming crackers.

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

The secret to a great holiday cracker joke is not the same as a good joke in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the shared amusement of the holiday meal with grandparents, children and possibly neighbours.

"You want the joke to be something that brings the child together with the grandparent," she adds.

The Science Behind Communal Amusement

Coming together to enjoy communal laughter is not only nothing new, experts say, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"So when you are chuckling with people at the holiday dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a truly primordial mammal social vocalisation," explains a professor.

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

Researchers have found that a lack of such social exchanges can seriously harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it results in increased amounts of endorphin release," she adds.

Endorphins are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as chuckling with loved ones over a particularly terrible festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply chuckling at a foolish joke with a Christmas cracker," she states. "You are in fact doing a lot of the truly important work of building, preserving the social bonds you have with the people you love."

What Happens Inside the Mind?

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

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

Using brain scanning technology, a kind of brain scanner which indicates which parts of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the regions that get more blood.

Testing entails imaging the brains of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a database of humorous phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a very fascinating pattern of activation," notes the neuroscientist.

A joke stimulates not just the parts of the mind responsible for hearing and understanding language, but also brain regions associated with both planning and starting motion and those linked to vision and recall.

Combine these elements together, and people hearing a pun have a sophisticated series of neural responses that support the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Power of Laughter

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

"This was in parts of the mind that you would use to move your face into a smile or a laugh," she says.

It indicates we are not just responding to humorous jokes, they are reacting to the laughter that accompanies them.

Amusement, according to the expert, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles found around a holiday gathering?

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you like them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she explains, the positive factor is more likely 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 joke, and it's just a reason to chuckle as a group."

The Search for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the ultimate gag?

Probably not, but that has not prevented researchers from attempting to.

In 2001, a professor set up a research search for the world's most humorous joke.

More than tens of thousands of jokes submitted, with scores lodged by 350,000 participants globally, he has a clearer understanding than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

The perfect Christmas cracker joke needs to be brief, he says.

"But they also need to be poor gags, puns that cause us to groan," he adds.

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

"The reason is that if nobody laughs – it's the joke's fault, not your own.

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

"That's a shared experience around the table and I believe it's wonderful."