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"How much did Santa's sleigh cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This one-liner is greeted with moans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that produces supplies for social events. Its catalogue features Christmas crackers.

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

"The success is gauged by the joke by the number of groans and the loudness of the groans around the table," she explains.

The key to a great holiday cracker joke is not the same as a good gag per se. It is entirely about the context - in this case, the shared amusement of the holiday dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially neighbours.

"The goal is for the gag to be something that unites the child in harmony with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Behind Shared Laughter

Gathering to experience shared laughter is not only ancient, experts say, it is probably to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with others at the holiday table you are dropping into what's very likely a truly primordial mammal play sound," says a professor.

Communal amusement, she says, aids in make and maintain social connections between individuals.

Researchers have discovered that a lack of such interactions can significantly harm both psychological and bodily health.

"Those you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to increased levels of endorphin release," the professor continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly terrible Christmas cracker gag.

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

What Occurs Inside the Brain?

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

A tremendous amount occurs in reaction to humour, it transpires.

Using brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the brain are working harder, researchers have been able to chart the areas that receive more blood.

Testing entails scanning the brains of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a very interesting pattern of neural activity," notes the professor.

A gag stimulates not just the areas of the mind responsible for hearing and interpreting language, but also neural areas associated with both planning and starting motion and those involved in vision and memory.

Combine all of this together, and individuals hearing a joke have a complex series of neural reactions that support the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a funny phrase is paired with chuckles there is a greater response in the mind than the same word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This was in parts of the mind that you would use to move your face into a grin or a chuckle," she says.

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

Amusement, says the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the laughter heard around a Christmas table?

"People laugh harder when you know people," she notes, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she explains, the positive factor is more probable to be triggered not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the perfect joke?

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

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

Over 40,000 jokes submitted, with ratings lodged by 350,000 people around the world, he has a better understanding than many as to what works and what fails.

The perfect Christmas cracker pun needs to be brief, he says.

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

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

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

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

"It creates a shared experience around the table and I think it's wonderful."