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

This joke is greeted with groans that resonate through a warehouse in London.

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

The company's owner grins, nearly sheepishly at the gag. But the joke has made the cut and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"You measure the gag by the number of moans and the loudness of the groans at the table," she says.

The key to a good holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a good joke per se. It is all about the setting - in this instance, the communal amusement of the holiday meal with elders, kids and possibly friends.

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

The Science Behind Communal Amusement

Gathering to enjoy communal laughter is not only nothing new, scientists argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are laughing with people around the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's almost certainly a really primordial mammalian play sound," says a neuroscience expert.

Shared amusement, she says, aids in make and maintain social bonds between individuals.

Scientists have found that a absence of these interactions can significantly damage both psychological and bodily health.

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced levels of endorphin release," she adds.

These natural chemicals are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a particularly terrible festive cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly joke with a holiday cracker," the expert states. "You are actually performing a lot of the really important work of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you love."

Which Occurs In the Mind?

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

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

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

The research entails imaging the minds of healthy subjects and then exposing them to a collection of funny words, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

"During the study we got a really fascinating pattern of activation," says the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the brain in charge of auditory processing and understanding language, but also neural areas associated with both planning and starting motion and those linked to sight and recall.

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

The Contagious Power of Laughter

Researchers discovered that when a funny phrase is paired with chuckles there is a stronger reaction in the brain than the same phrase when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would employ to contort your expression into a smile or a chuckle," she explains.

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

Laughter, according to the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the laughter heard around a holiday table?

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

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she explains, the feel-good effect is more likely to be triggered not by the joke in itself, but from the response to it.

"The laughter is key. The joke is the dreadful holiday cracker joke, and it's just a pretext to chuckle together."

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Is it possible to find the ultimate joke?

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

Years ago, a professor established a scientific project for the planet's funniest joke.

Over 40,000 jokes later, with ratings provided by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, he has a better idea than many as to what succeeds and what does not.

The perfect Christmas cracker joke needs to be brief, he explains.

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

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

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

"What's interesting about the holiday cracker puns is that not one person find them funny.

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