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

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

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that makes products for gatherings. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

The firm's owner grins, almost sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has been selected and will appear in future crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the number of moans and the intensity of the groans at the table," she explains.

The key to a good holiday cracker pun is not the same as a stand-up gag per se. It is entirely about the context - in this case, the communal amusement of the Christmas dinner table with elders, kids and possibly friends.

"You want the joke to be a thing that unites the eight-year-old together with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Shared Laughter

Coming together to experience shared laughter is not only ancient, scientists say, it is probably to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people at the holiday table you are engaging in what's very likely a really primordial mammalian social vocalisation," explains a professor.

Communal amusement, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between people.

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

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it leads to increased amounts of endorphin uptake," she continues.

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 friends over a particularly awful festive cracker gag.

"You're not just chuckling at a foolish pun with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly important task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with the people you love."

What Happens In the Mind?

But what is actually happening inside the mind when we listen to a gag?

An awful lot happens in response to comedy, it turns out.

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of neural imager which shows which areas of the brain are more active, scientists have been able to map the regions that get more blood.

Testing entails imaging the brains of healthy subjects and then subjecting them to a database of humorous phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

"During the study we observed a very interesting pattern of activation," says the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the mind responsible for auditory processing and interpreting language, but also brain regions involved in both planning and starting movement and those involved in sight and recall.

Put all of this together, and individuals hearing a joke have a sophisticated series of neural reactions that underpin the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Power of Laughter

Researchers found that when a humorous phrase is paired with laughter there is a stronger response in the brain than the identical word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would use to contort your face into a grin or a chuckle," the professor explains.

It means people are not just reacting to humorous jokes, they are responding to the laughter that accompanies them.

Amusement, says the professor, can be contagious.

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

"People laugh harder when you know others," she says, "and you laugh further when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she explains, the feel-good effect is more probable to be triggered not by the joke in itself, but from the reaction to it.

"It's the laughter. The gag is the terrible Christmas cracker joke, and it's just a pretext to chuckle as a group."

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Is it possible to discover the ultimate gag?

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

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

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

The ideal Christmas cracker pun needs to be brief, he explains.

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

The more "terrible" the joke, he states the better.

"This is because if nobody laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not yours.

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

"That's a shared experience at the table and I believe it's lovely."