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"How much did Father Christmas's sled cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This quip is greeted with moans that echo through a storage facility in London.

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that makes products for gatherings. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

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

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

The key to a great holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up joke per se. It is entirely about the context - in this instance, the communal amusement of the holiday dinner table with grandparents, children and possibly friends.

"You want the gag to be something that unites the child together with the grandparent," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Amusement

Gathering to experience communal laughter is not only ancient, experts say, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are laughing with others at the Christmas dinner you are dropping into what's very likely a really ancient mammal social vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Communal amusement, she explains, helps make and maintain social connections between individuals.

Scientists have discovered that a absence of such interactions can significantly damage mental and physical health.

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it results in enhanced levels of endorphin uptake," she adds.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are actually performing a lot of the really important work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you love."

Which Occurs Inside the Mind?

But what is truly happening inside the mind when we hear a joke?

A tremendous amount happens in response to comedy, it turns out.

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which indicates which parts of the mind are more active, scientists have been able to chart the areas that receive more blood.

Testing involves imaging the brains of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a database of humorous words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we observed a very fascinating pattern of activation," notes the professor.

A gag activates not just the parts of the mind responsible for auditory processing and understanding language, but also brain areas associated with both preparation and initiating movement and those involved in vision and recall.

Combine all of this as a whole, and people listening to a pun have a sophisticated set of neural reactions that underpin the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Laughter

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

"This was in parts of the brain that you would use to move your expression into a grin or a laugh," the professor says.

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

Amusement, says the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles heard at a Christmas table?

"People laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she says, "and laughter increases further when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she explains, the feel-good factor is more likely to be triggered not by the joke in 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 Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the perfect gag?

Probably not, but that has not prevented experts from trying to.

In 2001, a psychologist established a research project for the world's most humorous joke.

More than 40,000 gags later, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of people globally, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what succeeds and what fails.

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

"But they also need to be poor gags, puns that cause us to moan," he adds.

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

"This is because if nobody laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not your own.

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

"It creates a shared experience at the gathering and I believe it's wonderful."