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

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

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that makes supplies for gatherings. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

The firm's owner smiles, nearly apologetically at the joke. But the pun has been selected and will feature in upcoming crackers.

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

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

"You want the joke to be a thing that brings the child in harmony with the grandparent," she adds.

The Science Of Communal Laughter

Gathering to experience communal amusement is not only ancient, experts argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

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

Shared laughter, she says, helps make and maintain social connections between people.

Researchers have discovered that a absence of such interactions can significantly harm mental and physical well-being.

"The people you converse with, and share laughter with, it leads to increased levels of endorphin release," she continues.

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly awful festive cracker joke.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," she says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really important work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you care about."

Which Occurs In the Brain?

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

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

Using 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.

Testing entails scanning the brains of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded laughter.

"During the study we observed a very interesting activation pattern of neural activity," notes the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the mind in charge of hearing and interpreting language, but also brain areas associated with both planning and initiating motion and those involved in vision and recall.

Put these elements as a whole, and people listening to a pun have a sophisticated series of neural reactions that support the laughter we experience.

The Infectious Power of Laughter

Researchers found that when a humorous phrase is combined with laughter there is a greater response in the mind than the identical phrase when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in areas of the brain that you would use to contort your face into a smile or a chuckle," she explains.

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles found at a Christmas gathering?

"People laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she says, "and you laugh further when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she explains, the feel-good effect is more probable to be caused not by the gag in itself, but from the response to it.

"It's the laughter. The joke is the terrible Christmas cracker joke, and it's just a reason to chuckle together."

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Is it possible to find the ultimate joke?

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

Years ago, a professor established a research project for the world's funniest gag.

More than tens of thousands of jokes submitted, with ratings provided by 350,000 people around the world, he has a clearer understanding than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

The perfect festive cracker joke must be short, he says.

"They must also be bad gags, jokes that make us groan," he continues.

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

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

"What's interesting about the Christmas cracker jokes is that none of us find them funny.

"It creates a common moment around the table and I believe it's lovely."