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"How much did Santa's sled cost? Zero, it was on the house."

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

This describes a humor-evaluation session with a firm that produces products for gatherings. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

The company's owner 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 volume of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," she says.

The key to a good holiday cracker joke is not the same as a stand-up joke per se. It is entirely about the context - in this case, the communal amusement of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, kids and possibly friends.

"You want the gag to be something that brings the child together with the grandparent," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Laughter

Coming together to experience communal laughter is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others at the Christmas table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a really ancient mammalian social sound," says a professor.

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

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

"The people you converse with, and share laughter with, it results in increased amounts of 'happy chemical' release," she continues.

Endorphins are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly awful Christmas cracker gag.

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

Which Happens Inside the Mind?

But what is truly happening inside the mind when we listen to a joke?

An awful lot occurs in response to humour, it transpires.

Using brain scanning technology, a kind of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the brain are more active, scientists have been able to chart the regions that get more blood flow.

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

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

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the mind in charge of auditory processing and understanding language, but also neural regions involved in both preparation and initiating motion and those linked to sight and memory.

Combine all of this together, and individuals hearing a joke have a complex set of brain responses that underpin the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

Scientists found that when a funny phrase is combined with chuckles there is a stronger response in the mind than the identical word when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the mind that you would use to contort your face into a grin or a chuckle," she says.

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

Laughter, according to the expert, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles heard around a holiday table?

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

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she explains, the positive factor is more likely to be triggered not by the gag itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Search for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the perfect joke?

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

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

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

The ideal festive cracker pun needs to be brief, he explains.

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

The more "terrible" the joke, he says the more effective.

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

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

"That's a common experience at the gathering and I think it's lovely."