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"How much did Father Christmas's sled cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This one-liner is met by moans that resonate through a warehouse in London.

This describes a joke-testing session with a company that produces products for gatherings. Its catalogue includes festive crackers.

The firm's owner smiles, nearly sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has been selected and will appear in upcoming crackers.

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

The secret to a good holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a good joke per se. It is entirely about the context - in this instance, the shared amusement of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially friends.

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

The Neuroscience Of Shared Amusement

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

"So when you are chuckling with people around the Christmas table you are dropping into what's very likely a really ancient mammal play sound," says a professor.

Shared amusement, she explains, helps make and maintain social bonds between individuals.

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

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it leads to increased amounts of endorphin release," she continues.

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

"It's not simply chuckling at a foolish pun with a Christmas cracker," she says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the truly vital task of making, maintaining the connections you have with the people you love."

What Happens In the Mind?

But what is truly taking place inside the brain when we hear a joke?

A tremendous amount occurs in response to comedy, it transpires.

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of brain scanner which indicates which parts of the brain are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood.

Testing involves imaging the minds of healthy participants and then exposing them to a database of humorous phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or recorded laughter.

"During the study we observed a very interesting activation pattern of activation," notes the professor.

A gag stimulates not just the areas of the brain in charge of hearing and interpreting language, but also neural areas associated with both preparation and initiating movement and those involved in sight and memory.

Combine all of this as a whole, and individuals listening to a joke have a complex set of brain reactions that underpin the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a humorous phrase is combined with laughter there is a stronger response in the brain than the same phrase when followed by a neutral sound.

"This was in areas of the mind that you would use to contort your face into a grin or a chuckle," the professor explains.

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

Laughter, according to the expert, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the laughter heard at a holiday table?

"People laugh more when you know people," she says, "and you laugh further when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good effect is more likely to be caused not by the gag in itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Search for the Ideal Festive Pun

Is it possible to discover the perfect gag?

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

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

More than tens of thousands of gags later, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a clearer idea than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

The ideal festive cracker joke must be brief, he says.

"But they also need to be bad gags, puns that cause us to moan," he adds.

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

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

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

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