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

This one-liner is met by moans that resonate through a warehouse in London.

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

The firm's founder grins, nearly sheepishly at the gag. But the joke has been selected and will appear in upcoming crackers.

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

The key to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up joke in itself. It is all about the setting - in this case, the shared amusement of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, kids and possibly neighbours.

"The goal is for the gag to be something that brings the eight-year-old together with the grandparent," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Amusement

Gathering to enjoy shared laughter is not only nothing new, experts say, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"So when you are laughing with people at the Christmas table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammalian play sound," explains a professor.

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

Scientists have discovered that a absence of such social exchanges can seriously harm mental and physical health.

"The people you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' release," the professor continues.

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are released both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly awful Christmas cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a foolish pun with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are actually performing a lot of the truly vital work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you love."

What Occurs Inside the Brain?

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

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

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

The research entails scanning the minds of volunteer participants and then exposing them to a collection of humorous words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

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

A joke stimulates not just the parts of the brain in charge of hearing and understanding speech, but also neural areas associated with both planning and initiating motion and those involved in vision and recall.

Put all of this as a whole, and individuals hearing a joke have a sophisticated series of neural reactions that support the amusement we experience.

The Contagious Power of Laughter

Scientists discovered that when a humorous word is combined with chuckles there is a stronger reaction in the brain than the identical word when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This was in areas of the mind that you would employ to contort your expression into a smile or a chuckle," the professor says.

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

Laughter, according to the expert, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles found around a Christmas table?

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

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she says, the positive effect 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 Search for the Ideal Festive Pun

Is it possible to find the ultimate joke?

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

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

More than tens of thousands of jokes later, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of people globally, he has a better understanding than most as to what works and what does not.

The perfect festive cracker pun needs to be short, he says.

"But they also be bad jokes, jokes that make us groan," he continues.

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

"The reason is that if nobody finds it funny – it's the joke's fault, not your own.

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

"It creates a shared moment at the gathering and I think it's lovely."