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

This one-liner is met by groans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

We're at a joke-testing session with a company that produces supplies for gatherings. Its catalogue includes festive crackers.

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

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

The secret to a good Christmas cracker pun is not the same as a good joke per se. It is all about the setting - in this instance, the communal amusement of the Christmas meal with grandparents, kids and possibly friends.

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

The Neuroscience Of Shared Laughter

Gathering to enjoy communal laughter is not only ancient, scientists argue, it is probably to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people at the holiday table you are dropping into what's almost certainly a truly ancient mammalian social sound," says a professor.

Shared laughter, she explains, helps forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Scientists have found that a absence of such social exchanges can seriously damage mental and physical well-being.

"Those you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to enhanced amounts of endorphin release," the professor adds.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to reduce tension and discomfort and in reaction to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly terrible festive cracker joke.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact doing a lot of the truly vital task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with the people you care about."

Which Occurs In the Brain?

But what is truly happening inside the mind when we hear a gag?

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

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), 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 flow.

The research entails imaging the minds of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a database of humorous words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a really fascinating activation pattern of activation," says the professor.

A gag stimulates not just the areas of the mind responsible for hearing and understanding language, but also brain areas involved in both preparation and starting motion and those linked to vision and memory.

Combine these elements as a whole, and people hearing a joke have a sophisticated set of neural responses that support the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

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

"This activation occurred in parts of the mind that you would employ to contort your face into a grin or a chuckle," the professor says.

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be contagious.

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

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

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she explains, the feel-good factor is more probable to be caused not by the gag in itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever find the ultimate joke?

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

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

Over 40,000 jokes later, with ratings provided by 350,000 people globally, he has a clearer idea than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

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

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

The increasingly "awful" the gag, he states the better.

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the joke's fault, not yours.

"What's interesting about the Christmas cracker puns is that none of us considers them humorous.

"That's a shared experience around the table and I think it's lovely."