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

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

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a company that produces products for gatherings. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

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

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

The key to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up gag in itself. It is entirely about the context - in this case, the communal laughter of the holiday dinner table with elders, kids and potentially neighbours.

"You want the joke to be something that unites the child together with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Of Communal Laughter

Coming together to experience shared amusement is not only nothing new, scientists argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with others at the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's very likely a truly ancient mammalian social sound," says a professor.

Communal amusement, she says, helps forge and strengthen social connections between people.

Researchers have found that a lack of such social exchanges can significantly harm both psychological and bodily health.

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

These natural chemicals are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, 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 doing a lot of the truly vital work of building, preserving the social bonds you have with the people you love."

Which Happens In the Brain?

But what is actually happening inside the mind when we hear a joke?

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

Using brain scanning technology, a kind of neural imager which indicates which areas of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to chart the areas that get more blood flow.

The research involves scanning the brains of healthy participants and then exposing them to a collection of funny phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

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

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the brain responsible for hearing and interpreting speech, but also brain regions associated with both planning and starting motion and those involved in vision and memory.

Put these elements together, and people listening to a pun have a complex set of neural reactions that support the laughter we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Laughter

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

"This was in areas of the brain that you would employ to move your expression into a smile or a laugh," she says.

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

Amusement, says the professor, can be infectious.

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

"You laugh harder when you know others," she notes, "and laughter increases more when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she explains, the feel-good factor is more likely to be triggered not by the joke in itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the ultimate gag?

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

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

More than tens of thousands of gags later, with ratings provided by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, he has a clearer idea than most as to what succeeds and what does not.

The ideal Christmas cracker joke needs to be short, he says.

"They must also need to be poor jokes, jokes that make us moan," he adds.

The more "awful" the joke, he says the more effective.

"The reason is that if nobody laughs – it's the gag's fault, not yours.

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

"It creates a common moment at the table and I think it's wonderful."