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

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

We're at a joke-testing session with a firm that makes products for gatherings. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

The company's founder grins, almost apologetically at the gag. But the joke has been selected and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"You measure the gag by the number of groans and the intensity of the groans around the table," she explains.

The secret to a great holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a good gag per se. It is entirely about the context - in this instance, the shared laughter of the holiday dinner table with elders, children and potentially friends.

"You want the joke to be something that unites the eight-year-old in harmony with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Behind Shared Amusement

Coming together to enjoy communal amusement is not only ancient, experts say, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"So when you are chuckling with others at the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's almost certainly a truly ancient mammal play sound," explains a professor.

Communal amusement, she says, helps forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Researchers have found that a lack of such interactions can significantly harm both psychological and bodily health.

"Those you talk to, and share laughter with, it results in enhanced levels of endorphin release," she adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to reduce tension and discomfort and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as chuckling with friends over a truly awful Christmas cracker joke.

"It's not simply laughing at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are actually performing a lot of the really important work of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you care about."

What Happens In the Brain?

But what is actually taking place within the brain when we hear a gag?

An awful lot happens in response to comedy, it turns out.

Employing brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which shows which parts of the brain are working harder, researchers have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood flow.

Testing entails imaging the brains of healthy participants and then exposing them to a collection of funny words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we observed a really fascinating pattern of neural activity," notes the professor.

A joke activates not just the areas of the mind in charge of auditory processing and interpreting speech, but also neural regions involved in both planning and starting movement and those linked to vision and memory.

Put all of this as a whole, and people hearing a pun have a sophisticated set of brain responses that support the laughter we experience.

The Infectious Power of Laughter

Scientists found that when a funny phrase is combined with laughter there is a greater response in the mind than the identical word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the mind that you would employ to contort your expression into a grin or a laugh," she says.

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the laughter heard at a Christmas table?

"You laugh more when you are familiar with others," she notes, "and you laugh further when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she explains, the positive factor is more probable to be caused not by the gag in itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Search for the Ideal Festive Pun

Is it possible to discover the ultimate gag?

Likely not, but that has not stopped researchers from attempting to.

In 2001, a professor established a scientific search for the world's funniest gag.

More than 40,000 gags later, with ratings provided by 350,000 participants globally, he has a better idea than most as to what works and what fails.

The ideal Christmas cracker joke must be brief, he says.

"But they also need to be poor jokes, jokes that cause us to moan," he continues.

The more "awful" the joke, he says the better.

"The reason is that if no-one laughs – it's the joke's shortcoming, not yours.

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

"It creates a shared moment around the table and I think it's lovely."