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

This joke is greeted with groans that echo through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that makes products for social events. Its catalogue features Christmas crackers.

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

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

The key to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the identical as a good joke in itself. It is all about the context - in this instance, the shared laughter of the Christmas dinner table with elders, children and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the gag to be a thing that brings the eight-year-old together with the grandparent," she adds.

The Science Of Communal Amusement

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

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others at the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a really primordial mammalian play vocalisation," explains a professor.

Shared laughter, she says, helps make and maintain social connections between people.

Researchers have found that a lack of these interactions can significantly damage mental and physical health.

"Those you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced levels of endorphin uptake," she adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a particularly awful festive cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly important task of building, preserving the connections you have with those you care about."

Which Occurs Inside the Brain?

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

A tremendous amount occurs in reaction to comedy, it turns out.

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

The research involves imaging the brains of healthy subjects and then exposing them to a collection of funny phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we got a really fascinating pattern of neural activity," notes the professor.

A joke activates not just the areas of the mind in charge of auditory processing and understanding speech, but also neural areas associated with both planning and initiating movement and those linked to vision and memory.

Put these elements as a whole, and individuals hearing a joke have a complex set of neural responses that support the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a humorous phrase is combined with chuckles there is a greater response in the brain than the identical phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the brain that you would employ to contort your expression into a smile or a laugh," she explains.

It means we are not just reacting to funny jokes, they are responding to the amusement that accompanies them.

Laughter, says the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles found at a Christmas table?

"People laugh harder when you know people," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she says, the positive factor is more probable to be caused not by the gag itself, but from the reaction to it.

"It's the laughter. The gag is the terrible Christmas cracker joke, and it's just a reason to laugh as a group."

The Search for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Is it possible to discover the perfect joke?

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

Years ago, a psychologist set up a research search for the planet's funniest gag.

More than tens of thousands of gags later, with ratings lodged by 350,000 people globally, he has a better understanding than many as to what works and what does not.

The ideal Christmas cracker joke must be brief, he says.

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

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

"The reason is that if nobody finds it funny – it's the gag's fault, not your own.

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

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