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

This quip is met by groans that resonate through a warehouse in the capital.

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that produces products for social events. Its repertoire features festive crackers.

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

"You measure the joke by the number of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," she says.

The key to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the same as a good gag in itself. It is entirely about the context - in this case, the communal amusement of the Christmas meal with elders, children and possibly neighbours.

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

The Science Behind Shared Amusement

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

"Therefore when you are laughing with others at the holiday dinner you are engaging in what's almost certainly a truly ancient mammalian social vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Shared laughter, she says, aids in make and maintain social bonds between people.

Researchers have found that a lack of these social exchanges can significantly harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

"Those you converse with, and laugh with, it leads to increased amounts of 'happy chemical' uptake," she adds.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as chuckling with friends over a truly terrible festive cracker joke.

"You're not just laughing at a foolish pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert says. "You are actually performing a lot of the really vital task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with the people you care about."

What Occurs In the Mind?

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

A tremendous amount occurs in reaction to comedy, it transpires.

Using brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which shows which areas of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to map the areas that get more blood flow.

Testing involves scanning the brains of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we got a really fascinating pattern of neural activity," says the neuroscientist.

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the brain in charge of hearing and understanding speech, but also neural regions associated with both planning and starting movement and those involved in vision and recall.

Combine all of this together, and individuals listening to a joke have a sophisticated set of brain reactions that underpin the laughter we experience.

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a humorous word is combined with laughter there is a greater response in the brain than the same phrase when followed 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 laugh," the professor explains.

It means people are not just reacting to humorous words, they are responding to the amusement that follows them.

Laughter, according to the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the laughter heard at a holiday gathering?

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

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

"The laughter is key. The gag is the dreadful holiday cracker joke, and it's just a pretext to laugh as a group."

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the perfect joke?

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

Years ago, a professor set up a research search for the world's most humorous gag.

More than 40,000 jokes submitted, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what works and what does not.

The ideal festive cracker pun needs to be brief, he says.

"But they also be bad gags, jokes that make us moan," he continues.

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

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the gag's fault, not your own.

"The fascinating part about the holiday cracker puns is that not one person considers them funny.

"That's a common experience around the gathering and I think it's lovely."