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"How much did Santa's sled cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This joke is met by groans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

We're at a joke-testing meeting with a firm that produces products for gatherings. Its catalogue includes festive crackers.

The firm's founder smiles, almost sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has made the cut and will feature in future crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the volume of groans and the loudness of the groans around the table," the founder explains.

The key to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the same as a stand-up gag in itself. It is all about the setting - in this instance, the shared laughter of the Christmas meal with grandparents, children and potentially neighbours.

"You want the gag to be a thing that brings the eight-year-old in harmony with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Science Of Shared Laughter

Gathering to enjoy shared laughter is not only ancient, experts argue, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"So when you are laughing with people at the holiday dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a really primordial mammalian social sound," says a neuroscience expert.

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

Scientists have found that a lack of these social exchanges can significantly damage mental and physical health.

"The people you talk to, and laugh 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 stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a particularly terrible festive cracker gag.

"You're not just chuckling at a foolish joke with a Christmas cracker," she states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really important work of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you care about."

What Happens Inside the Mind?

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

A tremendous amount happens in reaction to comedy, it transpires.

Using brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which shows which parts of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to chart the areas that receive more blood flow.

The research entails imaging the minds of healthy participants and then exposing them to a database of humorous words, paired with either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

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

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the brain in charge of hearing and understanding speech, but also neural regions involved in both planning and starting movement and those linked to sight and memory.

Put these elements as a whole, and people hearing a pun have a complex series of brain reactions that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a humorous phrase is combined with chuckles there is a greater reaction in the mind than the same word when followed by a non-emotional sound.

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

It indicates we are not just reacting to funny jokes, they are reacting to the amusement that follows them.

Amusement, according to the expert, can be infectious.

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

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

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

"The laughter is key. The joke is the terrible 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?

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

In 2001, a psychologist established a scientific project for the world's most humorous joke.

Over tens of thousands of gags later, with scores provided by 350,000 participants globally, he has a better understanding than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

The perfect Christmas cracker pun must be short, he explains.

"They must also be poor jokes, puns that make us moan," he adds.

The more "terrible" the joke, he states the better.

"The reason is that if nobody laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not yours.

"The fascinating part about the holiday cracker jokes is that none of us find them funny.

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