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"What was the price did Santa's sleigh cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This joke is met by moans that echo through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that produces supplies for social events. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

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

"You measure the joke by the volume of moans and the loudness of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

The secret to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the same as a good gag per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the communal amusement of the holiday dinner table with grandparents, children and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the joke to be something that brings the child together with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Behind Shared Laughter

Gathering to enjoy shared laughter is not only ancient, experts say, it is probably to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with others around the Christmas table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a really primordial mammal social sound," says a professor.

Communal amusement, she explains, helps make and maintain social bonds between people.

Researchers have found 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 enhanced levels of endorphin uptake," the professor continues.

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

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," she states. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really important work of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you love."

Which Happens Inside the Mind?

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

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

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

Testing entails scanning the minds of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous words, paired with either a neutral sound, or recorded laughter.

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

A joke activates not just the areas of the brain responsible for auditory processing and understanding speech, but also neural areas involved in both preparation and starting motion and those involved in vision and recall.

Combine these elements together, and people listening to a joke have a sophisticated series of brain responses that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Power of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a humorous word is paired with chuckles there is a stronger reaction in the brain than the same phrase when followed by a neutral sound.

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

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

Laughter, according to the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the laughter found at a Christmas table?

"You laugh harder when you know people," she says, "and laughter increases further when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she explains, the feel-good factor is more likely to be caused not by the joke in itself, but from the response to it.

"The laughter is key. The gag is the terrible holiday cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to chuckle as a group."

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the perfect joke?

Probably not, but that has not prevented researchers from trying to.

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

More than 40,000 jokes submitted, with ratings lodged by 350,000 people around the world, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what works and what does not.

The perfect Christmas cracker pun needs to be brief, he says.

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

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

"This is because if nobody laughs – it's the gag's fault, not your own.

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

"That's a common moment around the gathering and I believe it's wonderful."