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

This one-liner is greeted with groans that resonate through a storage facility in London.

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a company that makes supplies for gatherings. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

The company's founder grins, almost apologetically at the gag. But the joke has been selected and will feature in future crackers.

"You measure the gag by the number of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

The secret to a good holiday cracker joke is not the same as a stand-up gag per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the communal amusement of the holiday meal with elders, kids and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the gag to be something that unites the child together with the grandparent," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Laughter

Gathering to experience shared laughter is not only nothing new, experts say, it is likely to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with others at the holiday table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a really ancient mammalian social sound," explains a neuroscience expert.

Communal laughter, she explains, helps make and maintain social bonds between individuals.

Scientists have discovered that a lack of these interactions can seriously harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

"The people you converse with, and laugh with, it results in enhanced levels of endorphin release," the professor continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in response to pleasurable activities, such as chuckling with friends over a particularly awful Christmas cracker gag.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," she says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really vital work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you love."

Which Occurs Inside the Brain?

But what is truly happening inside the brain when we listen to a joke?

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

Using brain scanning technology, a type of neural imager which shows which parts of the brain are working harder, researchers have been able to map the areas that receive more blood.

The research entails scanning the minds of volunteer participants and then exposing them to a database of humorous words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we observed a very fascinating pattern of activation," notes the professor.

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the mind in charge of auditory processing and understanding language, but also brain areas involved in both planning and starting movement and those linked to sight and recall.

Combine all of this together, and individuals listening to a joke have a sophisticated series of brain responses that support the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

Scientists discovered that when a funny word is combined with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the brain than the same phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the brain that you would employ to move your face into a smile or a chuckle," the professor explains.

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

Laughter, according to the professor, can be infectious.

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

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she says, "and laughter increases further when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she says, the feel-good effect is more probable to be triggered not by the gag in itself, but from the reaction to it.

"It's the laughter. The joke is the dreadful holiday cracker joke, and it's just a pretext to laugh 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 planet's funniest gag.

More than 40,000 gags submitted, with ratings lodged by 350,000 participants globally, he has a better idea than many as to what succeeds and what does not.

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

"But they also need to be bad gags, jokes that cause us to groan," he adds.

The increasingly "awful" the gag, 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 jokes is that not one person considers them funny.

"That's a common moment around the gathering and I believe it's wonderful."