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

This one-liner is greeted with groans that resonate through a warehouse in London.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that makes products for gatherings. Its catalogue includes festive crackers.

The company's owner grins, almost apologetically at the joke. But the pun has been selected and will feature in upcoming crackers.

"You measure the gag by the volume of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

The key to a great holiday cracker joke is not the same as a good gag per se. It is all about the setting - in this instance, the communal laughter of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, kids and potentially neighbours.

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

The Science Of Communal Amusement

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

"Therefore when you are laughing with people at the holiday table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a really ancient mammal play sound," says a neuroscience expert.

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

Researchers have discovered that a absence of such interactions can significantly harm mental and physical health.

"The people you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced levels of 'happy chemical' uptake," she continues.

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

"It's not simply laughing at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," she states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly vital task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you love."

Which Occurs In the Mind?

But what is truly taking place within the mind when we hear a gag?

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

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

The research involves imaging the brains of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a collection of funny phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

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

A gag stimulates not just the areas of the brain in charge of hearing and understanding speech, but also neural regions associated with both preparation and initiating motion and those involved in vision and memory.

Combine all of this as a whole, and people hearing a pun have a sophisticated set of neural reactions that support the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Nature of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a humorous word is combined with chuckles there is a greater response in the mind than the same word when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the brain that you would use to contort your expression into a grin or a laugh," the professor says.

It indicates we are not just reacting to humorous words, they are reacting to the amusement that follows them.

Laughter, according to the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles heard around a holiday gathering?

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

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good effect is more likely to be triggered not by the joke itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Is it possible to discover the perfect joke?

Likely not, but that has not stopped researchers from trying to.

Years ago, a psychologist established a research search for the world's funniest gag.

More than tens of thousands of jokes submitted, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what works and what fails.

The ideal festive cracker pun must be short, he explains.

"They must also be poor gags, puns that cause us to moan," he adds.

The increasingly "terrible" the gag, he says the better.

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the joke's fault, not your own.

"The fascinating part about the Christmas cracker jokes is that none of us considers them humorous.

"It creates a common experience at the table and I believe it's wonderful."