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

This quip is met by moans that echo through a warehouse in London.

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a company that makes supplies for gatherings. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

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

"You measure the gag by the number of moans and the loudness of the groans around the table," she explains.

The secret to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the same as a good gag in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the shared amusement of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, kids and potentially neighbours.

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

The Neuroscience Of Shared Laughter

Coming together to enjoy communal laughter is not only nothing new, scientists argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are laughing with people around the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's almost certainly a truly ancient mammalian social vocalisation," says a neuroscience expert.

Communal laughter, she explains, helps forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Scientists have found that a lack of such interactions can significantly harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

"Those you converse with, and laugh with, it results in enhanced levels of endorphin release," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in response to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly awful Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just laughing at a foolish joke with a Christmas cracker," the expert says. "You are actually doing a lot of the really vital task of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you care about."

Which Occurs Inside the Mind?

But what is actually happening within the mind when we hear a gag?

An awful lot occurs in response to comedy, it turns out.

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of neural imager which shows which parts of the brain are more active, researchers have been able to chart the areas that get more blood.

The research involves imaging the brains of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded laughter.

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

A gag activates not just the areas of the mind in charge of auditory processing and understanding speech, but also neural regions involved in both preparation and initiating motion and those linked to vision and recall.

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

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

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

"This was in parts of the brain that you would use to contort your face into a grin or a chuckle," the professor says.

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles heard around a Christmas gathering?

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with people," she notes, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or love them."

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

"The laughter is key. The joke is the terrible holiday cracker joke, and it's just a reason to chuckle as a group."

The Quest for the Ideal Festive Pun

Will we ever discover the perfect gag?

Likely not, but that has not prevented experts from trying to.

In 2001, a professor established a research search for the world's most humorous joke.

More than tens of thousands of gags later, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a clearer idea than most as to what works and what does not.

The perfect Christmas cracker joke must be short, he explains.

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

The more "awful" the joke, he states the more effective.

"The reason is that if nobody laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not yours.

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

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