Christmas story book lacking central element (4)
I believe the answer is:
noel
'christmas' is the definition.
(Noel can mean Christmas)
'story book lacking central element' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'lacking' could be 'no' (eg lacking money means with no money) and 'no' is present in the answer.
'element' could be 'e' (E is an example) and 'e' is located in the answer.
A single letter 'l' remains which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for noel that I've seen before include "Feature of last month" , "Coward - Christmas" , "Festive season" , "A lone French Christmas" , "Religious festival" .)