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"How much did Santa's sled cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This one-liner is met by moans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

We're at a joke-testing meeting with a firm that makes products for social events. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

The company's founder smiles, nearly sheepishly at the joke. But the joke has made the cut and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the volume of moans and the loudness 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 in itself. It is entirely about the context - in this instance, the shared amusement of the Christmas meal with grandparents, kids and potentially neighbours.

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

The Neuroscience Behind Communal Amusement

Coming together to enjoy shared amusement is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others around the Christmas table you are dropping into what's very likely a really primordial mammalian play vocalisation," explains a professor.

Communal amusement, she explains, helps make and maintain social bonds between individuals.

Researchers have discovered that a absence of such social exchanges can seriously harm both psychological and bodily health.

"Those you converse with, and laugh with, it results in increased amounts of 'happy chemical' release," the professor continues.

Endorphins are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to enjoyable experiences, such as chuckling with friends over a particularly awful festive cracker gag.

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

What Occurs In the Mind?

But what is actually taking place inside the mind when we listen to a gag?

An awful lot happens in response to humour, it turns out.

Using brain scanning technology, a kind of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to map the areas that receive more blood flow.

Testing entails scanning the minds of healthy subjects and then exposing them to a database of humorous phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"During the study we observed a really interesting pattern of neural activity," says the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the parts of the brain in charge of hearing and understanding speech, but also neural regions associated with both preparation and starting movement and those linked to sight and memory.

Combine these elements as a whole, and individuals listening to a joke have a complex set of brain reactions that underpin the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a humorous phrase is combined with chuckles there is a greater reaction in the mind than the identical phrase when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the brain that you would use to contort your expression into a smile or a chuckle," the professor says.

It means people are not just responding to funny jokes, they are responding to the amusement that accompanies them.

Laughter, says the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles found at a Christmas table?

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she notes, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she explains, the feel-good factor is more likely to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the reaction to it.

"It's the laughter. 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 perfect joke?

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

In 2001, a psychologist set up a research project for the planet's funniest gag.

More than tens of thousands of gags later, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a clearer idea than many as to what succeeds and what does not.

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

"But they also be poor jokes, puns that cause us to moan," he continues.

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

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

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

"That's a common experience at the gathering and I believe it's lovely."