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"How much did Santa's sled cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This quip is met by groans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

We're at a joke-testing meeting with a company that produces supplies for gatherings. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

The company's founder smiles, almost apologetically at the gag. But the joke has made the cut and will feature in upcoming crackers.

"You measure the gag by the volume of moans and the loudness of the groans at the table," she says.

The secret to a great holiday cracker joke is not the same as a stand-up gag per se. It is entirely about the context - in this case, the shared amusement of the Christmas meal with grandparents, children and possibly friends.

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

The Science Of Communal Amusement

Coming together to enjoy communal amusement is not only ancient, scientists argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are laughing with others at the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's almost certainly a really ancient mammalian social vocalisation," says a neuroscience expert.

Shared amusement, she explains, helps make and maintain social bonds between individuals.

Researchers have discovered that a lack of such interactions can significantly harm mental and physical health.

"Those you talk to, and share laughter with, it results in enhanced amounts of endorphin release," she adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in response to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with friends over a particularly awful festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply laughing at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," she states. "You are actually doing a lot of the really vital work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you care about."

What Occurs In the Brain?

But what is actually happening within the brain when we hear a gag?

A tremendous amount happens in response to comedy, it turns out.

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of brain scanner which shows which parts of the brain are more active, researchers have been able to map the areas that get more blood.

Testing involves imaging the minds of healthy subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we observed a really fascinating pattern of neural activity," says the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the parts of the mind responsible for auditory processing and interpreting language, but also brain regions associated with both preparation and initiating motion and those involved in sight and recall.

Put all of this together, and people listening to a pun have a complex set of brain reactions that support the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Scientists found that when a humorous word is combined with laughter there is a greater response in the brain than the identical phrase when followed by a neutral sound.

"This was in parts of the mind that you would use to move your face into a smile or a chuckle," the professor says.

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the laughter heard around a Christmas table?

"People laugh more when you are familiar with others," she notes, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she says, the positive factor is more likely to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the response 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 Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Is it possible to find the perfect gag?

Likely not, but that has not prevented experts from attempting to.

In 2001, a psychologist established a scientific search for the world's funniest gag.

Over 40,000 gags submitted, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, he has a clearer idea than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

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 adds.

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

"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.

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