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

This joke is met by moans that resonate through a storage facility in the capital.

This describes a joke-testing session with a company that produces supplies for social events. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

The company's owner grins, almost apologetically at the gag. But the pun has been selected and will feature in future crackers.

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

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

"The goal is for the joke to be a thing that unites the child in harmony with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Laughter

Gathering to experience communal amusement is not only ancient, experts say, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are laughing with others around the Christmas dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammalian play vocalisation," says a professor.

Shared amusement, she says, helps make and maintain social bonds between people.

Researchers have found that a absence of such social exchanges can seriously harm mental and physical health.

"The people you converse with, and share laughter with, it results in enhanced levels of 'happy chemical' release," the professor continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a particularly awful Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just laughing at a foolish pun with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really important task of making, maintaining the connections you have with the people you care about."

Which Occurs Inside the Brain?

But what is truly taking place within the brain when we listen to a gag?

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to chart the areas that receive more blood flow.

Testing involves imaging the minds of volunteer participants and then exposing them to a database of funny words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we observed a really interesting pattern of neural activity," says the neuroscientist.

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the mind in charge of auditory processing and interpreting language, but also neural areas associated with both preparation and starting movement and those involved in sight and recall.

Put these elements together, and individuals hearing a joke have a complex set of brain reactions that support the laughter we hear.

The Infectious Power of Laughter

Researchers found that when a funny word is combined with laughter there is a stronger response in the brain than the identical phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in areas of the mind that you would employ to move your face into a smile or a laugh," the professor says.

It indicates people are not just reacting to funny words, they are responding to the laughter that follows them.

Laughter, says the professor, can be infectious.

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

"People laugh more when you are familiar with others," she says, "and laughter increases further when you like them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she says, the feel-good factor is more likely to be triggered not by the gag itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Search for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the perfect gag?

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

In 2001, a professor set up a research search for the world's funniest joke.

Over tens of thousands of jokes later, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a clearer idea than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

The perfect Christmas cracker pun must be short, he says.

"They must also need to be bad jokes, jokes that cause us to groan," he adds.

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

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

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

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