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

This one-liner is met by moans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

We're at a joke-testing session with a firm that produces products for gatherings. Its catalogue features Christmas crackers.

The company's founder grins, nearly apologetically at the joke. But the joke has been selected and will feature in future crackers.

"You measure the joke by the number of groans and the loudness of the groans around the table," she explains.

The secret to a good Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a good gag per se. It is all about the context - in this case, the communal amusement of the holiday dinner table with elders, kids and possibly neighbours.

"The goal is for the joke to be something that unites the child in harmony with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Science Of Shared Amusement

Coming together to experience communal amusement is not only ancient, scientists say, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"So when you are chuckling with others at the Christmas table you are dropping into what's almost certainly a truly ancient mammalian play vocalisation," says a neuroscience expert.

Shared laughter, she explains, helps make and maintain social bonds between individuals.

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

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it results in enhanced amounts of endorphin uptake," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly awful Christmas cracker joke.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really vital work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you love."

Which Occurs Inside the Mind?

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

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

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of neural imager which indicates which parts of the brain are more active, researchers have been able to map the areas that get more blood.

Testing entails imaging the minds of healthy participants and then exposing them to a database of funny words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

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

A joke stimulates not just the parts of the mind responsible for auditory processing and interpreting speech, but also neural regions associated with both preparation and initiating motion and those involved in sight and recall.

Put these elements together, and people listening to a joke have a complex series of brain responses that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

Scientists discovered that when a funny word is combined with laughter there is a greater reaction in the mind than the identical word when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in areas of the brain that you would use to move your face into a smile or a laugh," the professor says.

It means people are not just reacting to funny jokes, they are reacting to the laughter that follows them.

Laughter, says the professor, can be contagious.

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

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she says, "and laughter increases more when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she explains, the positive factor is more likely to be caused not by the gag itself, but from the reaction to it.

"It's the laughter. The gag is the terrible Christmas cracker joke, and it's just a reason to laugh as a group."

The Search for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the perfect gag?

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

In 2001, a psychologist established a research search for the planet's funniest joke.

Over 40,000 jokes submitted, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, he has a better idea than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

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

"But they also be bad gags, jokes that make us groan," he continues.

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

"The reason is that if nobody finds it funny – it's the joke's shortcoming, not your own.

"What's interesting about the Christmas cracker jokes is that not one person find them funny.

"It creates a common moment at the gathering and I think it's wonderful."