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

This quip is met by moans that resonate through a storage facility in London.

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a firm that produces products for gatherings. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

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

"You measure the gag by the volume of moans and the intensity of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

The key to a great holiday cracker pun is not the same as a good joke in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the shared laughter of the Christmas dinner table with elders, children and possibly friends.

"You want the gag to be a thing that unites the child together with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Science Behind Shared Amusement

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

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people around the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really ancient mammal social sound," says a professor.

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

Researchers have discovered that a lack of these interactions can seriously damage mental and physical health.

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

Endorphins are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in reaction to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a truly awful Christmas cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," she states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly important task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you love."

What Occurs In the Mind?

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

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which indicates which parts of the brain are working harder, researchers have been able to map the regions that get more blood flow.

The research involves imaging the brains of healthy subjects and then exposing them to a collection of humorous words, paired with either a neutral sound, or recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we got a really fascinating activation pattern of activation," says the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the parts of the brain in charge of auditory processing and interpreting speech, but also neural areas associated with both preparation and starting movement and those involved in vision and memory.

Combine all of this as a whole, and individuals hearing a joke have a sophisticated series of brain responses that support the laughter we experience.

The Infectious Power of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a funny phrase is paired with chuckles there is a greater response in the mind than the same phrase when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in areas of the mind that you would employ to contort your face into a smile or a laugh," she explains.

It means we are not just reacting to humorous jokes, they are reacting to the amusement that accompanies them.

Amusement, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles found at a holiday table?

"People laugh more when you are familiar with people," she says, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she explains, the feel-good effect is more likely to be caused not by the gag in itself, but from the reaction to it.

"The laughter is key. The gag is the dreadful holiday cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to laugh as a group."

The Quest for the Ideal Festive Pun

Is it possible to find the ultimate gag?

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

Years ago, a professor set up a research search for the planet's most humorous joke.

More than tens of thousands of jokes submitted, with scores provided by 350,000 participants globally, he has a better understanding than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

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

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

The more "awful" the gag, he states the more effective.

"The reason is that if nobody finds it funny – it's the gag's fault, not yours.

"The fascinating part about the holiday cracker jokes is that not one person considers them funny.

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