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"What was the price did Father Christmas's sleigh cost? Zero, it was on the house."

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

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that makes products for social events. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

The firm's owner smiles, almost sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has been selected and will feature in upcoming crackers.

"You measure the gag by the number of groans and the loudness of the groans at the table," she explains.

The key to a good holiday cracker pun is not the same as a good gag in itself. It is all about the setting - in this case, the communal amusement of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially friends.

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

The Neuroscience Of Shared Amusement

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 people at the Christmas table you are engaging in what's very likely a really ancient mammalian play vocalisation," says a professor.

Shared amusement, she explains, aids in make and maintain social connections between people.

Researchers have found that a lack of these interactions can seriously damage both psychological and bodily well-being.

"Those you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to increased amounts of endorphin release," she adds.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a truly terrible Christmas cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a foolish pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly important work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with the people you care about."

Which Occurs Inside the Brain?

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

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

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of brain scanner which shows which areas of the brain are working harder, researchers have been able to chart the regions that get more blood flow.

The research involves scanning the minds of healthy subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous phrases, paired with either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a really fascinating pattern of activation," says the professor.

A gag activates not just the parts of the mind responsible for auditory processing and understanding language, but also brain regions involved in both planning and starting motion and those linked to sight and memory.

Put these elements as a whole, and individuals listening to a pun have a complex set of brain reactions that support the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a funny word is paired with chuckles there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the same word when accompanied by a neutral sound.

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

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

Amusement, says the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the laughter heard at a Christmas table?

"People laugh more when you know others," she says, "and laughter increases more when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she explains, the positive 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 dreadful Christmas cracker joke, and it's just a pretext to laugh together."

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Is it possible to discover the ultimate gag?

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

In 2001, a professor established a scientific project for the planet's funniest gag.

Over 40,000 jokes submitted, with scores provided by 350,000 participants globally, he has a better understanding than most as to what succeeds and what does not.

The perfect Christmas cracker pun needs to be short, he explains.

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

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

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

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

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