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

This one-liner is met by moans that echo through a warehouse in London.

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a firm that makes products for social events. Its catalogue features Christmas crackers.

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

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

The secret to a great holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up joke in itself. It is entirely about the context - in this instance, the shared amusement of the holiday dinner table with grandparents, kids and possibly neighbours.

"You want the gag to be a thing that unites the child together with the grandparent," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Amusement

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

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others at the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammalian play sound," explains a professor.

Shared amusement, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between people.

Scientists have discovered that a absence of these social exchanges can significantly damage mental and physical well-being.

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it results in enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' release," she adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to reduce tension and discomfort and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a truly terrible festive cracker joke.

"You're not just laughing at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," she states. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really important task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you love."

What Happens Inside the Mind?

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

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

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

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

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

A gag activates not just the parts of the mind responsible for auditory processing and interpreting speech, but also neural regions involved in both preparation and initiating movement and those involved in vision and recall.

Put all of this as a whole, and individuals listening to a pun have a sophisticated set of brain responses that support the laughter we experience.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Scientists found that when a funny phrase is combined with chuckles there is a stronger response in the mind than the same word when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

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

It indicates we are not just responding to funny words, they are responding to the amusement that accompanies them.

Amusement, says the expert, can be infectious.

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

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

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

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

The Search for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the perfect joke?

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

In 2001, a professor established a research search for the planet's most humorous gag.

More than tens of thousands of gags later, with ratings provided by 350,000 people around the world, he has a clearer understanding than many as to what works and what does not.

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

"But they also need to be bad jokes, jokes 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 yours.

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

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