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

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

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

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

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

The key to a good Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up gag in itself. It is all about the context - in this case, the shared laughter of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, kids and possibly friends.

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

The Science Of Communal Amusement

Coming together to enjoy shared amusement is not only ancient, experts argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are laughing with others around the Christmas table you are engaging in what's very likely a truly primordial mammalian social vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Communal amusement, she explains, helps forge and strengthen social bonds between individuals.

Scientists have discovered that a absence of these social exchanges can seriously harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

"Those you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to increased levels of endorphin release," she adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with friends over a truly awful festive cracker gag.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are actually doing a lot of the really vital work of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you care about."

What Happens In the Brain?

But what is actually taking place within the mind when we hear a gag?

An awful lot happens in response to comedy, it transpires.

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of brain scanner which shows which parts of the mind are more active, scientists have been able to map the regions that receive more blood.

Testing entails imaging the minds of healthy subjects and then subjecting them to a database of humorous words, paired with either a neutral sound, or recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we got a very interesting activation pattern of activation," says the professor.

A joke activates not just the parts of the mind in charge of hearing and interpreting language, but also neural areas involved in both planning and starting movement and those involved in sight and recall.

Put all of this as a whole, and people listening to a pun have a complex set of neural reactions that underpin the amusement we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Scientists found that when a humorous phrase is paired with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the same phrase when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in areas of the brain that you would employ to contort your expression into a grin or a laugh," she says.

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

Amusement, says the professor, can be infectious.

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

"You laugh more when you are familiar with others," she notes, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good factor is more likely to be triggered not by the gag itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Quest for the Perfect Festive Pun

Is it possible to find the ultimate gag?

Likely not, but that has not stopped experts from trying to.

In 2001, a professor set up a scientific project for the world's funniest gag.

Over 40,000 gags later, with scores lodged by 350,000 people around the world, he has a clearer idea than most as to what works and what does not.

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

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

The more "awful" the joke, he says the better.

"The reason is that if no-one finds it funny – it's the joke's shortcoming, not your own.

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

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