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

This quip is greeted with moans that resonate through a storage facility in London.

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that produces products for gatherings. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

The company's owner smiles, almost apologetically at the joke. But the joke has made the cut and will feature in future crackers.

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

The secret to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the same as a stand-up gag in itself. It is entirely about the context - in this case, the communal amusement of the Christmas meal with grandparents, kids and potentially friends.

"You want the joke to be something that unites the child together with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Shared Amusement

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

"So when you are chuckling with people at the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammal play sound," says a neuroscience expert.

Shared amusement, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Scientists have found that a absence of such social exchanges can significantly harm mental and physical well-being.

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it results in enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," she continues.

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

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish pun with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are actually performing a lot of the truly vital work of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you care about."

What Happens In the Mind?

But what is truly happening inside the brain when we hear a joke?

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which shows which parts of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to map the regions that get more blood.

The research involves imaging the brains of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we got a very fascinating pattern of neural activity," notes the neuroscientist.

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the brain responsible for auditory processing and understanding speech, but also neural areas involved in both preparation and starting motion and those involved in sight and recall.

Put all of this as a whole, and people listening to a joke have a sophisticated series of neural reactions that support the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a humorous word is combined with chuckles there is a stronger response in the mind than the identical word when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the mind that you would employ to contort your face into a smile or a chuckle," she says.

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

Amusement, according to the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the laughter heard around a holiday table?

"You laugh harder when you know others," she says, "and laughter increases more when you like them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she explains, the feel-good effect is more probable to be caused not by the joke in itself, but from the reaction to it.

"It's the laughter. The joke is the terrible holiday cracker pun, and it's just a reason to chuckle together."

The Search for the Ideal Festive Pun

Is it possible to discover the perfect gag?

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

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

More than 40,000 jokes later, with ratings lodged by 350,000 people globally, he has a clearer idea than many as to what works and what fails.

The ideal festive cracker joke needs to be brief, he explains.

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

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

"This is because if nobody finds it funny – it's the gag's fault, not yours.

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

"It creates a common moment around the gathering and I believe it's lovely."