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

This joke is greeted with groans that echo through a warehouse in London.

This describes a humor-evaluation session with a company that produces products for gatherings. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

The firm's owner grins, nearly sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has been selected and will feature in future crackers.

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

The key to a great holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up joke in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the communal amusement of the Christmas meal with grandparents, children and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the joke to be a thing that unites the child together with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Behind Communal Laughter

Coming together to enjoy shared laughter is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with people at the holiday table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a really primordial mammalian social sound," explains a professor.

Communal amusement, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Scientists have discovered that a lack of these interactions can seriously damage mental and physical health.

"The people you converse with, and share laughter with, it leads to increased levels of 'happy chemical' uptake," she adds.

Endorphins are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in response to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with friends over a particularly terrible festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish joke with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly vital work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you care about."

What Occurs In the Brain?

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

An awful lot occurs in reaction to comedy, it turns out.

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

Testing entails imaging the brains of volunteer subjects and then exposing them to a collection of humorous words, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

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

A gag activates not just the parts of the mind responsible for hearing and interpreting language, but also neural areas involved in both preparation and initiating movement and those involved in sight and recall.

Combine these elements as a whole, and individuals listening to a joke have a sophisticated set of brain reactions that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Infectious Power of Laughter

Scientists discovered that when a funny word is paired with laughter there is a greater response in the brain than the identical word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the brain that you would use to contort your face into a grin or a chuckle," the professor explains.

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

Laughter, according to the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles heard at a holiday 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 likely to be triggered not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Search for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Is it possible to discover the perfect gag?

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

Years ago, a professor set up a research search for the world's most humorous gag.

More than tens of thousands of jokes later, with scores provided by 350,000 people around the world, he has a better understanding than many as to what works and what fails.

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

"They must also be poor jokes, puns that cause us to groan," he continues.

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

"The reason is that if no-one finds it funny – it's the joke's shortcoming, not your own.

"What's interesting about the Christmas cracker puns is that not one person find them funny.

"It creates a shared experience at the gathering and I believe it's lovely."