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

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

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that produces products for social events. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

The company's founder smiles, nearly apologetically at the joke. But the joke has made the cut and will appear in future crackers.

"The success is gauged by the gag by the volume of groans and the loudness of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

The secret to a good holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up joke per se. It is all about the context - in this case, the communal amusement of the holiday dinner table with elders, children and potentially neighbours.

"The goal is for the joke to be a thing that brings the eight-year-old in harmony with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Science Of Communal Amusement

Gathering to enjoy communal laughter is not only ancient, scientists say, it is probably to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people at the Christmas table you are dropping into what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammal play sound," says a neuroscience expert.

Communal amusement, she says, aids in make and maintain social bonds between people.

Researchers have found that a absence of these social exchanges can seriously damage mental and physical health.

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it leads to increased levels of 'happy chemical' release," the professor adds.

Endorphins are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly terrible festive cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," she says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly vital work of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you care about."

Which Occurs Inside the Mind?

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

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

Using brain scanning technology, a kind of neural imager which shows which parts of the mind are more active, scientists have been able to map the areas that receive more blood flow.

Testing entails scanning the minds of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we got a really interesting pattern of activation," notes the neuroscientist.

A joke activates not just the areas of the mind in charge of auditory processing and interpreting speech, but also brain regions involved in both preparation and initiating movement and those involved in vision and memory.

Combine these elements together, and individuals hearing a joke have a sophisticated series of brain reactions that support the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Scientists discovered that when a humorous phrase is combined with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the brain than the identical phrase when followed by a non-emotional sound.

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

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

Amusement, says the expert, can be contagious.

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

"You laugh harder when you know others," she notes, "and you laugh more when you like them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she explains, the positive factor is more probable to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

"The laughter is key. The joke is the terrible holiday cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to laugh together."

The Quest for the Ideal Festive Pun

Is it possible to discover the ultimate joke?

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

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

Over 40,000 gags later, with scores lodged by 350,000 people around the world, he has a clearer idea than many as to what succeeds and what does not.

The ideal festive cracker pun must be short, he says.

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

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

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

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

"That's a shared experience around the gathering and I think it's wonderful."