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

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

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a firm that produces supplies for gatherings. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

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

"You measure the joke by the volume of groans and the intensity of the groans around the table," the founder explains.

The secret to a good holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up gag in itself. It is entirely about the context - in this instance, the shared laughter of the Christmas dinner table with elders, children and potentially friends.

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

The Neuroscience Of Communal Laughter

Coming together to experience communal amusement is not only ancient, experts argue, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"So when you are chuckling with others around the Christmas table you are dropping into what's very likely a really ancient mammalian play vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Communal amusement, she says, helps forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

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

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced amounts of endorphin release," the professor adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as chuckling with loved ones over a truly awful festive cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," she says. "You are actually performing a lot of the really vital task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you care about."

Which Occurs Inside the Mind?

But what is truly happening inside the mind when we listen to a joke?

A tremendous amount happens in reaction to humour, it turns out.

Using brain scanning technology, a kind of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the brain are more active, scientists have been able to chart the regions that get more blood.

Testing entails imaging the brains of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a collection of funny phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

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

A gag activates not just the parts of the brain in charge of hearing and interpreting language, but also brain areas associated with both preparation and starting movement and those linked to vision and recall.

Put these elements as a whole, and individuals hearing a pun have a complex set of brain reactions that support the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a funny word is paired with chuckles there is a greater reaction in the brain than the same word when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the brain that you would employ to contort your expression into a grin or a laugh," the professor explains.

It indicates people are not just reacting to humorous words, they are reacting to the amusement that accompanies them.

Amusement, according to the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles heard at a holiday gathering?

"You laugh more when you are familiar with people," she says, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she says, the positive effect is more probable to be triggered not by the joke in itself, but from the reaction to it.

"The laughter is key. The gag is the dreadful Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to laugh as a group."

The Search for the Ideal Festive Pun

Will we ever discover the ultimate gag?

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

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

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

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

"But they also be poor gags, puns that make us moan," he continues.

The increasingly "awful" the gag, he states the more effective.

"This is because if nobody laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not your own.

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

"That's a shared moment at the table and I think it's lovely."