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"What was the price did Father Christmas's sleigh cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

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

We're at a joke-testing meeting with a company that makes products for social events. Its catalogue features Christmas crackers.

The company's founder smiles, almost sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has been selected and will feature in upcoming crackers.

"You measure the gag by the number of groans and the loudness of the groans around the table," the founder says.

The secret to a great Christmas cracker joke is not the same as a good gag per se. It is all about the context - in this instance, the shared amusement of the Christmas meal with grandparents, kids and potentially friends.

"The goal is for the gag to be a thing that brings the child in harmony with the grandparent," she adds.

The Science Behind Communal Amusement

Gathering to enjoy shared laughter is not only nothing new, experts say, it is probably to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others at the Christmas table you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really ancient mammalian social vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Communal laughter, she explains, helps make and maintain social bonds between people.

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

"Those you talk to, and share laughter with, it results in increased 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 enjoyable activities, such as laughing with friends over a particularly awful festive cracker joke.

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish pun with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly important work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with the people you love."

Which Happens Inside the Mind?

But what is actually taking place inside the brain when we listen to a joke?

A tremendous amount occurs in reaction to comedy, it turns out.

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

Testing entails imaging the minds of volunteer subjects and then exposing them to a collection of humorous phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"During the study we observed a very fascinating pattern of neural activity," says the neuroscientist.

A gag stimulates not just the areas of the brain responsible for hearing and understanding speech, but also neural regions involved in both planning and starting motion and those involved in vision and memory.

Combine all of this together, and individuals listening to a pun have a complex series of neural responses that underpin the laughter we hear.

The Infectious Power of Laughter

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

"This activation occurred in parts of the brain that you would use to contort your expression into a grin or a laugh," she says.

It means people are not just reacting to humorous jokes, they are responding to the amusement that follows them.

Amusement, according to the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the laughter heard at a Christmas gathering?

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she explains, the positive factor is more likely to be caused not by the gag in itself, but from the response to it.

"It's the laughter. The gag is the dreadful holiday cracker pun, and it's just a reason to chuckle as a group."

The Quest for the Perfect Festive Pun

Is it possible to discover the perfect gag?

Probably not, but that has not stopped experts from trying to.

In 2001, a psychologist established a scientific search for the planet's funniest joke.

More than tens of thousands of gags submitted, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a clearer idea than many as to what works and what does not.

The perfect festive cracker joke needs to be short, he says.

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

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

"The reason is that if nobody finds it funny – it's the joke's shortcoming, not yours.

"The fascinating part about the holiday cracker puns is that not one person considers them funny.

"It creates a shared moment around the table and I think it's lovely."