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 really understand 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 found in the answer.
A single letter 'l' remains which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
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" .)