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"What was the price did Santa's sleigh cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This one-liner is met by groans that echo through a warehouse in the capital.

We're at a joke-testing session with a company that makes products for gatherings. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

The company's founder grins, almost apologetically at the joke. But the joke has made the cut and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the gag by the number of groans and the loudness of the groans at 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 setting - in this instance, the shared amusement of the Christmas dinner table with elders, kids and potentially neighbours.

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

The Neuroscience Of Shared Amusement

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

"So when you are chuckling with people at the holiday table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a really ancient mammal social vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Communal amusement, she says, helps make and maintain social bonds between people.

Researchers have found that a lack of these social exchanges can seriously damage both psychological and bodily health.

"The people you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to increased levels of endorphin release," the professor continues.

Endorphins are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a particularly terrible festive cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are actually doing a lot of the really vital task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you love."

Which Occurs In the Mind?

But what is actually taking place inside the brain when we listen to a joke?

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

Employing brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to map the areas that receive more blood flow.

Testing entails imaging the minds of healthy participants and then exposing them to a collection of funny phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

"During the study we observed a very interesting pattern of activation," notes the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the parts of the mind responsible for hearing and interpreting language, but also brain regions associated with both planning and initiating movement and those linked to sight and recall.

Put these elements together, and individuals hearing a joke have a sophisticated series of brain reactions that underpin the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

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

"This was in parts of the brain that you would use to contort your expression into a smile or a chuckle," she says.

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

Amusement, according to the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles heard around a holiday table?

"You laugh more when you know people," she says, "and laughter increases further when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she explains, the positive factor is more likely to be caused not by the gag in itself, but from the reaction to it.

"The laughter is key. The joke is the terrible Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to laugh together."

The Quest for the Ideal Festive Pun

Is it possible to find the perfect joke?

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

In 2001, a psychologist established a research search for the planet's funniest joke.

More than 40,000 gags later, with ratings provided by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, he has a better understanding than most as to what works and what does not.

The ideal festive cracker pun must be short, he says.

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

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

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

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

"It creates a shared moment at the table and I believe it's wonderful."