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"What was the price did Santa'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 joke-testing meeting with a firm that makes products for gatherings. Its catalogue includes festive crackers.

The firm's founder smiles, 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 moans and the loudness of the groans around the table," she explains.

The key to a good Christmas cracker pun is not the same as a stand-up joke in itself. It is all about the setting - in this instance, the shared amusement of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, children and possibly neighbours.

"The goal is for the joke to be a thing that brings the child together with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Neuroscience Behind Shared Amusement

Gathering to experience communal amusement is not only ancient, experts say, it is likely to be pre-human.

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

Shared laughter, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between individuals.

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

"Those you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to increased amounts of 'happy chemical' release," the professor adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as chuckling with friends over a particularly terrible Christmas cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly important task of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you love."

Which Occurs In the Brain?

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

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which shows which areas of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to chart the areas that get more blood.

Testing involves imaging the brains of healthy participants and then exposing them to a collection of humorous phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we observed a really interesting pattern of activation," notes the neuroscientist.

A joke activates not just the parts of the mind in charge of auditory processing and understanding speech, but also brain areas involved in both preparation and initiating movement and those involved in sight and recall.

Combine these elements together, and individuals hearing a pun have a sophisticated series of neural responses that underpin the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Power of Laughter

Scientists found that when a funny word is combined with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the brain than the identical word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This was in parts of the brain that you would employ to move your expression into a grin or a laugh," the professor explains.

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

Amusement, according to the expert, can be infectious.

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

"People laugh more when you know others," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good factor is more likely to be triggered not by the gag itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Search for the Ideal Festive Pun

Is it possible to discover the perfect joke?

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

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

More than tens of thousands of gags submitted, with scores provided by 350,000 participants globally, he has a better understanding than most as to what works and what does not.

The ideal Christmas cracker joke needs to be brief, he says.

"They must also be bad gags, puns that make us groan," he continues.

The increasingly "awful" the gag, he says the more effective.

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

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

"That's a shared experience at the gathering and I believe it's lovely."