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

This quip is met by moans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that produces products for social events. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

The firm's owner smiles, 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 explains.

The secret to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up gag in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the shared laughter of the holiday meal with elders, kids and possibly neighbours.

"You want the gag to be a thing that unites the child together with the grandparent," she adds.

The Science Behind Shared Laughter

Coming together to experience communal amusement is not only nothing new, scientists say, it is probably to be pre-human.

"So when you are chuckling with people at the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammalian social vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Shared laughter, she explains, helps forge and strengthen social connections between people.

Scientists have found that a lack of these social exchanges can seriously harm mental and physical health.

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

These natural chemicals are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as chuckling with friends over a truly awful Christmas cracker gag.

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish joke with a Christmas cracker," she says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really vital work of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you love."

Which Occurs In the Mind?

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

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

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of brain scanner which shows which parts of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood.

The research entails scanning the minds of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded chuckles.

"During the study we observed a very fascinating pattern of neural activity," notes the neuroscientist.

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the brain responsible for hearing and interpreting language, but also neural areas involved in both preparation and initiating motion and those involved in sight and memory.

Put these elements together, and people listening to a joke have a sophisticated series of neural responses that underpin the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Power of Laughter

Scientists discovered that when a humorous phrase is paired with chuckles there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the identical word when followed by a neutral sound.

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

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

Laughter, according to the expert, can be contagious.

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

"People laugh harder when you know others," she notes, "and you laugh further when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she says, the positive factor is more probable to be triggered not by the gag in itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Is it possible to find the perfect gag?

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

In 2001, a professor set up a research project for the world's funniest gag.

More than 40,000 jokes later, with ratings lodged by 350,000 people 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 explains.

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

The increasingly "awful" the joke, he states the better.

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

"The fascinating part about the holiday cracker puns is that none of us considers them humorous.

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