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

This one-liner is greeted with groans that resonate through a storage facility in the capital.

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that makes products for social events. Its repertoire includes festive crackers.

The company's founder smiles, nearly 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 intensity of the groans at the table," she explains.

The secret to a great Christmas cracker joke is not the same as a stand-up joke per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the communal laughter of the holiday meal with elders, kids and possibly neighbours.

"You want the gag to be a thing that brings the child in harmony with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Behind Communal Amusement

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

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

Communal laughter, she explains, aids in make and maintain social connections between people.

Scientists have found that a lack of these interactions can significantly harm mental and physical health.

"The people you converse with, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced amounts of endorphin uptake," she adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as chuckling with friends over a particularly awful Christmas cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a foolish joke with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are actually performing a lot of the truly important work of building, preserving the social bonds you have with the people you love."

Which Occurs In the Brain?

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

An awful lot occurs in response to humour, it turns out.

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

The research involves imaging the brains of healthy subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of funny phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we observed a really fascinating pattern of neural activity," says the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the mind in charge of hearing and understanding speech, but also brain areas involved in both planning and starting motion and those involved in sight and memory.

Combine these elements as a whole, and individuals hearing a joke have a sophisticated set of neural reactions that underpin the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Researchers found that when a funny phrase is combined with laughter there is a greater response in the brain than the same word when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the mind that you would use to contort your expression into a grin or a chuckle," she explains.

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

Amusement, says the professor, can be contagious.

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

"People laugh more 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 effect is more probable to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

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

The Search for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the perfect joke?

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

Years ago, a professor established a research search for the planet's funniest gag.

Over tens of thousands of jokes later, with ratings provided by hundreds of thousands of people globally, he has a better idea than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

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

"But they also need to be poor jokes, puns that cause us to groan," he continues.

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

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

"The fascinating part about the Christmas cracker puns is that none of us considers them humorous.

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