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"What was the price did Father Christmas's sleigh cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This one-liner is greeted with groans that resonate through a warehouse in London.

This describes a humor-evaluation session with a firm that produces products for social events. Its repertoire includes festive crackers.

The firm's owner grins, almost apologetically at the joke. But the joke has been selected and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the gag by the volume of groans and the loudness of the groans around the table," the founder says.

The secret to a great holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a good joke per se. It is entirely about the context - in this instance, the shared amusement of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially neighbours.

"The goal is for the joke to be a thing that unites the eight-year-old together with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Science Behind Shared Amusement

Gathering to experience communal laughter is not only ancient, experts say, it is probably to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with others around the Christmas table you are dropping into what's very likely a really primordial mammal play sound," explains a professor.

Shared laughter, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between people.

Researchers have discovered that a absence of these interactions can significantly harm mental and physical well-being.

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it results in enhanced levels of 'happy chemical' uptake," the professor continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as chuckling with friends over a truly awful festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly vital task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you care about."

What Occurs Inside the Brain?

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

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a kind of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to chart the areas that get more blood.

Testing entails imaging the minds of healthy participants and then exposing them to a collection of funny phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we observed a very interesting pattern of neural activity," says the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the areas of the mind responsible for hearing and interpreting speech, but also neural areas involved in both preparation and starting movement and those linked to sight and memory.

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

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

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

"This activation occurred in parts of the mind that you would use to contort your face into a grin or a laugh," the professor says.

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

Amusement, says the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles found at a holiday gathering?

"People laugh more when you know people," she says, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she explains, the positive factor is more likely to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Search for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the ultimate joke?

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

Years ago, a psychologist established a scientific project for the world's funniest joke.

More than tens of thousands of gags submitted, with scores provided by 350,000 people around the world, he has a better understanding than many as to what works and what fails.

The perfect festive cracker joke needs to be short, he explains.

"They must also be poor gags, puns that make us groan," he continues.

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

"The reason is that if nobody laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not yours.

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

"It creates a shared experience around the table and I believe it's lovely."