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

This one-liner is greeted with groans that echo through a storage facility in London.

This describes a joke-testing session with a firm that produces supplies for gatherings. Its repertoire includes festive crackers.

The company's owner smiles, nearly sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has made the cut and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the gag by the number of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," she says.

The secret to a great holiday cracker joke is not the same as a good joke per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the shared laughter of the Christmas meal with elders, kids and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the gag to be something that brings the child together with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Neuroscience Behind Communal Amusement

Gathering to experience shared laughter is not only nothing new, scientists argue, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"So when you are chuckling with others at the holiday dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a really primordial mammal play sound," explains a professor.

Shared amusement, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between people.

Researchers have discovered that a lack of these social exchanges can seriously damage mental and physical health.

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

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly terrible Christmas cracker gag.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," she states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really important task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you care about."

Which Happens Inside the Mind?

But what is actually taking place within the mind when we hear a joke?

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

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of neural imager which indicates which parts of the brain are more active, scientists have been able to map the regions that receive more blood flow.

Testing entails imaging the brains of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a database of funny phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded laughter.

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

A joke activates not just the areas of the brain responsible for hearing and understanding speech, but also brain regions associated with both preparation and starting motion and those involved in vision and recall.

Combine all of this together, and people listening to a joke have a complex series of brain responses that support the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Scientists discovered that when a funny phrase is paired with laughter there is a stronger response in the mind than the same word when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would use to move your face into a grin or a chuckle," she explains.

It means people are not just responding to funny jokes, they are responding to the amusement that accompanies them.

Laughter, says the professor, can be contagious.

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

"People laugh harder when you are familiar with people," she notes, "and you laugh further when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she explains, the positive effect is more probable to be triggered not by the gag itself, but from the reaction to it.

"It's the laughter. The gag is the terrible Christmas cracker joke, and it's just a pretext to chuckle together."

The Quest for the Perfect Festive Pun

Is it possible to find the ultimate joke?

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

Years ago, a psychologist established a scientific project for the planet's most humorous joke.

Over 40,000 jokes submitted, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, he has a better idea than most as to what succeeds and what does not.

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

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

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

"This is because if nobody laughs – it's the joke's fault, not yours.

"The fascinating part about the Christmas cracker jokes is that not one person considers them humorous.

"It creates a shared experience at the table and I believe it's wonderful."