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

This quip is met by moans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that makes supplies for gatherings. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

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

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

The key to a good holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up joke per se. It is all about the context - in this case, the communal amusement of the Christmas dinner table with elders, kids and potentially friends.

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

The Science Behind Shared Laughter

Gathering to experience shared amusement is not only ancient, scientists argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"So when you are chuckling with people at the holiday table you are dropping into what's very likely a really ancient mammalian play sound," explains a neuroscience expert.

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

Researchers have discovered that a absence of these interactions can significantly damage both psychological and bodily health.

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced levels of 'happy chemical' release," she adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as chuckling with loved ones over a particularly awful festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are actually performing a lot of the truly important task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you love."

Which Happens Inside the Mind?

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

A tremendous amount occurs in response to comedy, it turns out.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of neural imager which indicates which parts of the brain are working harder, researchers have been able to chart the areas that receive more blood flow.

Testing entails scanning the brains of healthy participants and then exposing them to a database of humorous phrases, paired with either a neutral sound, or recorded chuckles.

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

A joke activates not just the parts of the brain responsible for auditory processing and interpreting speech, but also neural regions associated with both planning and initiating motion and those linked to vision and recall.

Put these elements together, and people listening to a joke have a sophisticated series of brain responses that support the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a humorous phrase is paired with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the identical word when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This was in parts of the brain that you would employ to move your face into a grin or a chuckle," the professor says.

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the laughter heard at a holiday gathering?

"People laugh harder when you know people," she notes, "and you laugh more 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 gag itself, but from the reaction to it.

"It's the laughter. The gag is the terrible Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a reason to laugh together."

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the ultimate joke?

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

In 2001, a professor established a research search for the world's funniest gag.

More than tens of thousands of jokes later, with scores lodged by 350,000 participants around the world, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

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

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

The increasingly "terrible" the joke, he says the better.

"This is because if no-one finds it funny – it's the gag's shortcoming, not yours.

"What's interesting about the holiday cracker jokes is that none of us find them humorous.

"It creates a shared experience around the table and I think it's wonderful."