What was going on when I was born?

''I couldn't let that punk get away with it and what counts is that he didn't.

It's still November, but Pat Septon is already running short on Christmas spirit. For weeks now, he and hundreds of other eastern Canadians have been spending 12- and 14-hour days chopping down Christmas trees to decorate the living rooms, dens and basements of millions of American homes in the coming weeks. This is the busiest time of year for Canada's Christmas tree exporters, an informally organized but highly competitive multimillion-dollar industry that is currently going through some major changes. All over Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec, the brattling sound of chain saws has echoed through the woods since the last 10 days of October. The 10- to 12-year-old trees, mostly balsam, have been selected, felled, dragged to nearby dirt roads and hauled to packing yards.

Mayor Koch has abandoned the policy of letting New York City agency heads pick their own deputies and has ordered that all such appointments be made by City Hall. In a memorandum to all agency heads, the Mayor said that ''these consultations are not to be considered pro forma.'' Moreover, he wrote, City Hall will not be bound by any commitments that agency heads may make to potential appointees. He attributed the need for the new policy to a shift in emphasis, from the ''fiscal stability'' that he says he concentrated on in his first term to the ''enhanced delivery of services'' that he has promised in his second.

Let there be light, said the skyscraper owners, and there was light, and it was good.

Leonid I. Brezhnev and Chancellor Helmut Schmidt today ended three days of talks during which they agreed to set up separate Soviet-West German contacts on arms control parallel to the Soviet-American talks starting Monday in Geneva. A West German spokesman, Kurt Becker, disclosed the plan at a news conference, saying that the separate exchanges were considered necessary because ''we are the people most deeply concerned'' by the outcome of the Soviet-American talks, which will seek to limit or reduce medium-range nuclear weapons in Europe. The State Department, commenting in Washington on various arms proposals made by Mr. Brezhnev in Bonn, said that with the Geneva talks about to begin, it was now ''time for serious discussions and a cessation of public posturing.'' (Page A10.)

Parade - Begins 9 A.M., Central Park West and 77th Street; moves south to Columbus Circle, then on Broadway to 34th Street; ends at noon.

Soon virtually everyone who works will be eligible to invest in Individual Retirement Accounts, and soon these accounts will be free of interest-rate ceilings. This has touched off what could be one of the biggest battles for personal savings in memory. Banks, insurance companies, mutual funds, credit unions and brokerage houses are scrambling to sign up new I.R.A. savers. The institutions are enticed by the prospect of 100 million workers permitted to put aside hundreds of dollars every year in these retirement accounts. An Individual Retirement Account is a specially designated investment account that is tax-deferred. The money that is put into it and the earnings on the account are not subject to income tax until the money is withdrawn, generally after the holder retires. There are to be few restrictions on how the money in such an account may be invested. Buying life insurance is not allowed. Neither are collectables, such as diamonds or rare stamps.

The Arab League meeting here broke up in disarray a few hours after it opened today amid Syrian opposition to the Saudi Arabian plan for peace in the Middle East. The meeting opened with the ritual calls for Arab unity, but the most important topic of discussion in this ancient foothill city was the absence of President Hafez al-Assad of Syria, who unexpectedly joined the other major hard-line Arab leaders, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya and President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, in not attending the meeting. Their resistance, coupled with strong opposition from within the Palestine Liberation Organization, meant that the plan put forward by Crown Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia would not become a unified Arab proposal. Syria's Position Is Critical The position of Syria was particularly critical because of the influence that it exercises over the Palestinian guerrillas through its military control of the areas in Lebanon in which they operate.

When dawn breaks in the mountains here, the embers are barely smouldering in the two fireplaces in Ronald Reagan's five-room, 100-year-old adobe ranch house. At this time of year, the first order of the day for the President of the United States is not to read his national security briefing, or to meet with his top aides. It is to get the fires burning again, because his house is cold. ''You'd be surprised, even in California - we're up at 2,400 feet - how many days there can be where you have to keep the fireplaces going all day,'' Mr. Reagan said in an interview. ''And a cord of wood goes awfully fast when you do that.''

A picture caption Wednesday incor- rectly identified a vehicle taking par- tin American-Egyptian military exer- cises. It was a Soviet-made armored personnel carrier.

President Hosni Mubarak today unconditionally released 31 political figures and journalists jailed in September and met with them at the suburban palace where he keeps an office. Among those released were five former Cabinet officials, including Mohammed Hassanein Heikal, a prominent journalist who once served as Minister of Information under Gamal Abdel Nasser. ''This is a great thing,'' Mr. Heikal said after the meeting with Mr. Mubarak at the palace in Heliopolis. ''It is the first time a President receives freed political prisoners and talks to them.''

THEY are colorful and traditional and really rather nice. Who could say a word against holly and mistletoe and red felt stockings at Christmas? No one. No one is saying a word against them. There is also nothing wrong with tinsel and red velvet, but nowhere is it written that they are holiday musts. If truth be told, a goodly number of people are tired of the whole lot of them, maybe even bored, and would like to bridge the new and the old without changing the flavor and spirit of the season. The nicest thing about approaching December decorations with a fresh eye is that, in many cases, it is possible to achieve a festive holiday look that will live long after the holiday has passed.