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

This joke is met by groans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a firm that produces supplies for social events. Its repertoire includes festive crackers.

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

"The success is gauged by the gag by the volume of groans and the loudness of the groans at the table," the founder says.

The key to a great holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a good joke in itself. It is all about the setting - in this case, the communal amusement of the holiday meal with elders, kids and possibly neighbours.

"You want the joke to be a thing that brings the child in harmony with the grandparent," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Laughter

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

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others at the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a really primordial mammal play vocalisation," says a professor.

Shared laughter, she says, helps forge and strengthen social connections between people.

Researchers have found that a absence of such interactions can seriously damage both psychological and bodily health.

"Those you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced levels of 'happy chemical' uptake," she continues.

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to reduce tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable experiences, such as chuckling with loved ones over a particularly terrible festive cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a foolish pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really vital task of building, preserving the connections you have with those you love."

Which Happens In the Brain?

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

A tremendous amount happens in response to comedy, it turns out.

Employing brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which shows which parts of the brain are more active, researchers have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood.

The research involves scanning the minds of volunteer participants and then exposing them to a collection of funny words, paired with either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"During the study we observed 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 brain regions involved in both preparation and starting motion and those involved in sight and recall.

Put all of this together, and individuals listening to a joke have a complex series of neural reactions that support the laughter we experience.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a humorous word is combined with chuckles there is a stronger response in the brain than the same phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would employ to move your expression into a smile or a chuckle," the professor says.

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

Amusement, says the professor, can be contagious.

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

"You laugh more when you are familiar with others," she says, "and laughter increases more when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good factor is more probable to be triggered not by the gag 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 laugh together."

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Is it possible to discover the perfect joke?

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

In 2001, a psychologist set up a scientific search for the planet's most humorous joke.

Over 40,000 jokes later, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a better understanding than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

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

"They must also be bad gags, puns that cause us to moan," he adds.

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

"This is because if nobody laughs – it's the joke's fault, not yours.

"The fascinating part about the Christmas cracker puns is that not one person find them humorous.

"That's a shared experience around the table and I believe it's lovely."