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"What was the price did Father Christmas's sled cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

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

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

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

"The success is gauged by the gag by the volume of moans and the loudness of the groans at the table," she says.

The secret to a good Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a good gag in itself. It is entirely about the context - in this instance, the shared amusement of the holiday meal with grandparents, children and possibly friends.

"You want the joke to be something that unites the child in harmony with the grandparent," she adds.

The Science Of Communal Amusement

Gathering to experience communal amusement is not only nothing new, experts say, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"So when you are chuckling with others around the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a truly ancient mammal social vocalisation," says a neuroscience expert.

Communal laughter, she says, aids in make and maintain social bonds between individuals.

Scientists have found that a absence of these interactions can seriously harm both psychological and bodily health.

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

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a truly terrible festive cracker gag.

"You're not just chuckling at a foolish pun with a Christmas cracker," she states. "You are actually performing a lot of the truly important work of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you care about."

Which Happens Inside the Mind?

But what is actually taking place inside the mind when we hear a gag?

An awful lot happens in response to comedy, it transpires.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to map the regions that get more blood flow.

The research entails imaging the minds of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

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

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the mind in charge of hearing and interpreting speech, but also brain areas associated with both preparation and starting movement and those linked to sight and memory.

Combine these elements as a whole, and individuals listening to a pun have a sophisticated series of brain responses that underpin the amusement we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a funny word is paired with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the identical phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the brain that you would use to move your expression into a grin or a chuckle," she says.

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

Laughter, says the expert, can be contagious.

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

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she notes, "and laughter increases more when you are fond of them or care for them."

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

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

The Search for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the perfect gag?

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

In 2001, a psychologist set up a scientific project for the world's most humorous gag.

Over 40,000 gags later, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a clearer idea than most as to what works and what does not.

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

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

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

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

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

"That's a shared moment at the gathering and I think it's wonderful."