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

This one-liner is greeted with groans that echo through a warehouse in London.

This describes a joke-testing meeting with a company that makes products for social events. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

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

"You measure the gag by the number of groans and the loudness of the groans around the table," she says.

The secret to a great Christmas cracker joke is not the identical as a good gag in itself. It is all about the context - in this instance, the communal laughter of the holiday meal with grandparents, kids and possibly friends.

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

The Neuroscience Of Communal Amusement

Coming together to enjoy shared amusement is not only nothing new, scientists say, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"So when you are chuckling with people at the Christmas table you are engaging in what's very likely a really primordial mammal play sound," explains a professor.

Shared amusement, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Researchers have found that a lack of such social exchanges can significantly harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

"The people you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' release," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as chuckling with friends over a particularly awful Christmas cracker joke.

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish joke with a holiday cracker," she says. "You are actually performing a lot of the really important work of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you love."

What Happens In the Brain?

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

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the brain are more active, scientists have been able to map the regions that get more blood flow.

Testing entails imaging the minds of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a database of humorous phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

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

A gag activates not just the areas of the mind in charge of auditory processing and interpreting language, but also brain areas associated with both planning and starting movement and those involved in vision and memory.

Combine these elements together, and individuals listening to a joke have a complex series of brain reactions that support the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Laughter

Researchers found that when a humorous phrase is combined with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the same word when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would employ to move your face into a grin or a chuckle," she says.

It indicates people are not just reacting to funny words, they are responding to the amusement that follows them.

Amusement, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles found at a holiday gathering?

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she notes, "and laughter increases more when you like them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she says, the positive factor is more likely to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

"It's the laughter. The joke is the terrible Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to chuckle as a group."

The Quest for the Perfect Festive Pun

Is it possible to find the perfect joke?

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

Years ago, a psychologist established a research project for the planet's funniest joke.

Over tens of thousands of gags later, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a clearer idea than many as to what works and what does not.

The perfect Christmas cracker pun must be brief, he says.

"They must also be poor gags, puns that cause us to groan," he continues.

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

"This is because if nobody laughs – it's the gag's fault, not yours.

"What's interesting about the holiday cracker jokes is that none of us considers them humorous.

"That's a shared experience around the gathering and I think it's wonderful."