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

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

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a firm that produces products for social events. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

The firm's founder grins, nearly sheepishly at the joke. But the joke has been selected and will appear in future crackers.

"You measure the joke by the volume of groans and the loudness of the groans at the table," the founder says.

The key to a great Christmas cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up joke per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the communal laughter of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, children and possibly friends.

"You want the joke to be something that unites the eight-year-old together with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Science Behind Communal Amusement

Coming together to enjoy shared laughter is not only ancient, scientists say, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"So when you are laughing with others at the Christmas dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really primordial mammal play vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

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

Scientists have found that a absence of such interactions can significantly damage mental and physical health.

"Those you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' release," she adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in reaction to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a particularly awful festive cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," she says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really vital task of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you love."

Which Occurs Inside the Mind?

But what is truly taking place within the brain when we listen to a gag?

An awful lot occurs in response to humour, it turns out.

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of neural imager which shows which areas of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to chart the regions that get more blood flow.

The research entails imaging the brains of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a database of humorous phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we got a very interesting activation pattern of neural activity," says the professor.

A gag activates not just the areas of the mind responsible for auditory processing and understanding language, but also brain areas associated with both planning and initiating movement and those linked to sight and memory.

Put these elements as a whole, and people hearing a joke have a complex set of neural reactions that underpin the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

Scientists discovered that when a humorous phrase is combined with laughter there is a greater reaction in the brain than the same phrase when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This was in areas of the mind that you would use to move your expression into a smile or a laugh," the professor explains.

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the laughter heard at a holiday table?

"People laugh harder when you are familiar with people," she notes, "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 triggered not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Quest for the Ideal Festive Pun

Will we ever discover the ultimate joke?

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

In 2001, a professor set up a research project for the planet's funniest joke.

Over 40,000 gags submitted, with ratings lodged by 350,000 people globally, he has a clearer idea than most as to what works and what fails.

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

"They must also need to be bad gags, puns that make us moan," he continues.

The increasingly "terrible" the gag, he says the better.

"This is because if nobody finds it funny – it's the gag's shortcoming, not yours.

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

"It creates a common moment at the gathering and I think it's lovely."