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

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

This describes a joke-testing session with a company that makes products for gatherings. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

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

"The success is gauged by the joke by the volume of groans and the loudness of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

The key to a great holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up gag in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the communal laughter of the holiday dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially neighbours.

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

The Neuroscience Of Communal Amusement

Gathering to experience shared laughter is not only ancient, experts say, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others around the Christmas table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a really ancient mammalian social vocalisation," says a neuroscience expert.

Shared amusement, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between people.

Scientists have found that a absence of such social exchanges can seriously damage both psychological and bodily well-being.

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it leads to increased amounts of endorphin uptake," the professor adds.

These natural chemicals are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with friends over a particularly awful Christmas cracker gag.

"It's not simply laughing at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," she says. "You are actually performing a lot of the truly vital task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with the people you love."

What Happens Inside the Brain?

But what is actually happening within the mind when we listen to a gag?

An awful lot happens in reaction to humour, it turns out.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of brain scanner which indicates which parts of the mind are more active, scientists have been able to chart the areas that receive more blood flow.

The research entails scanning the brains of volunteer participants and then exposing them to a database of humorous phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

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

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the mind responsible for auditory processing and interpreting language, but also brain regions associated with both planning and initiating motion and those involved in vision and memory.

Put these elements together, and individuals hearing a joke have a sophisticated set of neural reactions that support the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a funny phrase is combined with chuckles there is a greater reaction in the brain than the identical phrase when accompanied by a neutral sound.

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

It indicates people are not just responding to humorous jokes, they are responding to the laughter that follows them.

Laughter, according to the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the laughter found around a holiday 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 jokes, she says, the feel-good effect is more probable to be caused not by the gag in itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the ultimate joke?

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

Years ago, a professor set up a scientific project for the planet's most humorous gag.

More than 40,000 jokes later, with scores lodged by 350,000 participants globally, he has a better understanding than many as to what works and what fails.

The perfect festive cracker joke needs to be brief, he explains.

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

The increasingly "awful" the joke, he states the more effective.

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the gag's fault, not yours.

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

"It creates a common experience at the table and I think it's lovely."