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

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

We're at a humor-evaluation session with a firm that makes products for social events. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

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

"You measure the joke by the volume of moans and the intensity of the groans around the table," she says.

The key to a good holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up joke per se. It is all about the context - in this instance, the shared amusement of the holiday dinner table with elders, kids and potentially friends.

"The goal is for the gag to be a thing that brings the child in harmony with the grandparent," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Shared Laughter

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

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others at the Christmas dinner you are dropping into what's very likely a really primordial mammal social sound," says a professor.

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

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

"The people you converse with, and share laughter with, it results in increased amounts of endorphin release," the professor continues.

Endorphins are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a particularly awful Christmas cracker joke.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," she states. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly vital task of building, preserving the connections you have with those you love."

What Occurs In the Brain?

But what is actually taking place inside the mind when we listen to a gag?

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

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of brain scanner which shows which areas of the brain are more active, researchers have been able to chart the regions that get more blood flow.

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

"During the study we observed a really fascinating activation pattern of neural activity," says the neuroscientist.

A joke activates not just the areas of the mind in charge of hearing and interpreting language, but also brain areas involved in both planning and initiating movement and those involved in vision and recall.

Combine these elements together, and people listening to a pun have a complex set of neural responses that support the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

Scientists discovered that when a humorous word is paired with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the mind than the same phrase when followed by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would employ to move your face into a grin or a chuckle," the professor explains.

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

Amusement, according to the expert, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the laughter found around a Christmas table?

"You laugh more when you are familiar with people," she says, "and laughter increases more when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she says, the positive effect is more likely to be triggered not by the gag itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Search for the Perfect Festive Pun

Is it possible to find the perfect joke?

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

Years ago, a psychologist established a research search for the planet's most humorous gag.

More than 40,000 jokes submitted, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of people globally, he has a clearer understanding than many as to what works and what fails.

The ideal festive cracker joke needs to be short, he says.

"They must also be poor jokes, jokes that cause us to groan," he adds.

The increasingly "terrible" the joke, he says the more effective.

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the joke's fault, not yours.

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

"It creates a common experience around the table and I believe it's wonderful."