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"How much did Santa's sled cost? Zero, it was on the house."

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

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that makes supplies for social events. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

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

"The success is gauged by the joke by the volume of moans and the intensity of the groans at the table," she explains.

The secret to a good Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a good joke per se. It is all about the setting - in this instance, the communal amusement of the holiday meal with elders, kids and potentially neighbours.

"You want the joke to be a thing that unites the eight-year-old in harmony with the grandparent," she states.

The Neuroscience Behind Communal Amusement

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

"So when you are laughing with people at the holiday table you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really ancient mammalian play sound," says a professor.

Shared laughter, she explains, aids in make and maintain social connections between individuals.

Scientists have found that a lack of such social exchanges can significantly damage mental and physical health.

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced levels of endorphin uptake," the professor continues.

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a particularly terrible festive cracker gag.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," the expert says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really vital task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you care about."

What Happens Inside the Mind?

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

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

Using brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which shows which areas of the brain are working harder, scientists have been able to map the regions that get more blood.

The research entails scanning the minds of volunteer participants and then exposing them to a collection of humorous phrases, paired with either a neutral sound, or recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we got a really fascinating activation pattern of neural activity," notes the neuroscientist.

A joke activates not just the parts of the mind responsible for hearing and interpreting speech, but also neural areas associated with both preparation and initiating motion and those linked to sight and memory.

Combine all of this together, and people hearing a joke have a complex set of brain responses that support the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

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

"This was in areas of the brain that you would employ to move your expression into a grin or a laugh," she says.

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

Laughter, says the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles found at a Christmas table?

"People laugh harder when you know others," she says, "and laughter increases more when you like them or love them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good factor is more likely to be triggered not by the joke itself, but from the reaction to it.

"The laughter is key. The joke is the dreadful Christmas cracker joke, and it's just a reason to laugh together."

The Quest for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever find the ultimate joke?

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

In 2001, a psychologist set up a research search for the world's funniest gag.

More than tens of thousands of gags submitted, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of people globally, he has a better idea than many as to what works and what fails.

The ideal festive cracker joke must be short, he explains.

"But they also need to be poor gags, jokes that cause us to moan," he continues.

The more "terrible" the gag, he says the more effective.

"This is because if no-one 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.

"That's a common experience at the gathering and I believe it's lovely."