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

This joke is met by groans that resonate through a warehouse in London.

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a firm that makes supplies for gatherings. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

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

"You measure the gag by the number of groans and the loudness of the groans at the table," she explains.

The secret to a good holiday cracker joke is not the same as a good joke per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the communal laughter of the holiday dinner table with grandparents, children and possibly friends.

"You want the joke to be something that brings the child together with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Behind Communal Laughter

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

"Therefore when you are laughing with others at the holiday table you are dropping into what's very likely a really primordial mammalian play sound," explains a professor.

Shared amusement, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between people.

Scientists have discovered that a absence of such interactions can significantly damage both psychological and bodily well-being.

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

These natural chemicals are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as chuckling with friends over a truly terrible festive cracker joke.

"It's not simply chuckling at a foolish pun with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly important task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you love."

Which Occurs Inside the Brain?

But what is actually taking place within the mind when we listen to a joke?

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of neural imager which indicates which areas of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood flow.

Testing involves imaging the minds of healthy subjects and then exposing them to a collection of humorous words, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

"During the study we observed a very fascinating activation pattern of neural activity," says the neuroscientist.

A joke stimulates not just the parts of the mind in charge of auditory processing and interpreting language, but also neural areas associated with both planning and starting motion and those linked to vision and memory.

Put all of this as a whole, and people listening to a joke have a complex series of neural reactions that underpin the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a funny word is paired with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the brain than the same word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This was in areas of the brain that you would use to contort your expression into a smile or a chuckle," the professor explains.

It indicates people are not just reacting to humorous words, they are reacting to the amusement that follows them.

Laughter, according to the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles heard at a holiday table?

"You laugh harder when you know others," she notes, "and laughter increases more when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to festive 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.

"It's the laughter. The joke is the dreadful holiday cracker pun, and it's just a reason to laugh as a group."

The Quest for the Ideal Festive Pun

Is it possible to discover the ultimate gag?

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

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

More than 40,000 gags later, with scores lodged by 350,000 people around the world, he has a better understanding than most as to what works and what does not.

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

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

The increasingly "awful" the gag, he says the more effective.

"The reason is that if no-one finds it funny – it's the gag's fault, not your own.

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

"That's a shared experience at the gathering and I believe it's wonderful."