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

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

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a company that produces supplies for social events. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

The company's founder smiles, almost sheepishly at the joke. But the joke has been selected and will feature in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the volume of moans and the intensity of the groans around the table," the founder says.

The secret to a great holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up joke per se. It is all about the context - in this instance, the shared amusement of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, kids and potentially friends.

"The goal is for the gag to be something that brings the child in harmony with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Science Behind Shared Laughter

Coming together to enjoy communal amusement is not only ancient, scientists argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with others around the Christmas dinner you are dropping into what's very likely a truly ancient mammalian play vocalisation," says a neuroscience expert.

Shared amusement, she explains, helps make and maintain social bonds between people.

Scientists have discovered that a lack of these social exchanges can significantly harm both psychological and bodily health.

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it results in enhanced levels of 'happy chemical' uptake," the professor adds.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with friends over a truly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," she says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really important task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with the people you love."

Which Occurs Inside the Mind?

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

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of brain scanner which shows which areas of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to map the regions that get more blood flow.

The research involves imaging the brains of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a really interesting pattern of neural activity," notes the neuroscientist.

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the mind responsible for auditory processing and understanding speech, but also brain regions involved in both preparation and starting motion and those linked to vision and memory.

Combine all of this as a whole, and people hearing a pun have a complex series of brain responses that support the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a funny word is combined with laughter there is a greater reaction in the brain than the same word when accompanied by a neutral sound.

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

It means we are not just responding to funny words, they are responding to the amusement that follows them.

Laughter, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the laughter heard at a Christmas gathering?

"You laugh more when you know people," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she explains, the positive effect is more probable to be triggered not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Will we ever find the perfect joke?

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

In 2001, a psychologist established a scientific search for the world's funniest joke.

More than 40,000 gags later, with ratings provided by 350,000 people around the world, he has a better understanding than many as to what succeeds and what does not.

The ideal festive cracker pun needs to be short, he says.

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

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

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the joke's shortcoming, not your own.

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

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