What was going on when I was born?

Christmas came in simple ways yesterday. In gusty winds that blew tinsel down empty streets. In children clutching toys barely unwrapped. In prayers sung in kitchens laden with food, and whispered at tables where meals had been a gift. Stores that were bursting with shoppers last weekend had become quiet shells. But tourists still walked past them, pointing to the giant red ribbon draped over Cartier's and the elaborate scenes in the windows of Lord & Taylor. The carolers who had clustered on street corners were gone, replaced by groups of children showing off their Christmas fortunes.

New York City has required housing developers using Federal subsidies to pay millions of dollars since 1979 into a program meant to restore poor neighborhoods. But an examination of city records shows that the program has paid out only a fraction of the money and that little legitimate neighborhood improvement has been accomplished. For each of the 89 federally sponsored low- and middle-income housing projects built in the city in the last five years, the city program was supposed to produce a plan for a park, a ball field or other amenities nearby. But only two plans have been carried out - a vest-pocket children's park on Decatur Avenue in the Bronx, and the renovation of two buildings in another Bronx neighborhood. To spend the money collected from developers, the City Department of Housing Preservation and Development designates local community groups. In one case, the leader of a Bronx community group walked away with the money and has not been found. In other cases, groups approved by the department have turned out to be shams, with no members, no financial records and bogus mailing addresses.

The Voice of America has signed agreements with five countries to improve its transmitting ability and is also pressing Israel for permission to set up equipment there to broadcast to Soviet Central Asia and Afghanistan, Administration officials said today. Under a $1.5 billion program, the Voice of America, the broadcasting arm of the United States Information Agency, has been seeking to improve its equipment and expand its broadcasting reach throughout the world, the officials said. The Reagan Administration has said the modernization is needed to replace decades-old transmitters and to catch up with purported advantages enjoyed by the Soviet broadcasting service, Radio Moscow. The addition of transmitters, particularly closer to the Soviet Union, is aimed at overcoming the jamming carried on by the Soviet Union and its allies, the officials said.

Nora Sayre, a former film critic for The New York Times and the author of ''Running Time: Films of the Cold War'' and ''Sixties Going on Seventies'' is working on a book about the 1950's. As December dwindles, there may be an unwillingness to let go of a year, if it has been a good one, or a rush of relief when a painful year is over. Final holidays can also be a reminder that much of the future is not under one's control. Of course New Year's Eve varies its meaning at different times in our lives: Early on, it's an occasion for observing older people; later, we may find that it signifies closeness to others or relish for seclusion. For me, it has often raised questions about several kinds of freedom and conflicting concepts of pleasure.

At the beginning of last week, top executives of the Phillips Petroleum Company convened their investment bankers and lawyers in New York to find a way to fend off T. Boone Pickens, the Texas corporate raider who was attempting to wrest control of the company. By the time Phillips and Mr. Pickens came to terms last Sunday after a weekend of difficult telephone negotiations, a complex and novel deal had been crafted. But those familiar with its evolution say it was the only feasible way to protect Phillips employees, get rid of Mr. Pickens and his Mesa Partners, and benefit Phillips's other shareholders, at least to some extent. In fact, some analysts think the deal may become a model for the financial restructuring of other oil companies that have somewhat lackluster records but do not want to be swallowed up. ''It's a lot more important than just a partial success for Boone Pickens,'' said Alan Edgar, an oil analyst with Schneider, Bernet & Hickman Inc. in Dallas. ''It has some far-reaching ramifications. There are other companies out there that are going to get exposed to this blueprint, either voluntarily or involuntarily.''

As the Labor Department announced its latest figures on inflation - consumer prices rising at a skimpy two-tenths of 1 percent in November - White House spokesman Larry Speakes said flatly: ''We have nailed inflation.'' There is no doubt that immense progress has been made, but many analysts feel that Mr. Speakes's claim last week was premature and that inflation remains a problem still to be solved. With the United States completing its third straight year in which consumer price increases have been held to 4 percent, barely one-third the average inflation for the 1979-81 period, it is little wonder that the No. 1 problem of just four years ago seems to have almost vanished from the national psyche. But many think the greatest economic policy achievement of the decade may have brought a dangerous complacency. The beast, like a lion cub, may look harmless enough but, if allowed in the house, it cannot be ignored for long.

The Palm Beach County Solid Waste Authority was about to plunge into the bond market with a $320 million financing for a trash incinerator when the deal fell apart. Fuji Bank's decision on Dec. 7 not to back the bonds with its letter of credit could hardly have come at a worse time, according to Timothy F. Hunt, the authority's executive director. ''We are under a lot of pressure to sell these bonds before the end of the year, when new Federal laws come into effect,'' he said. Normally, a bank's backing out or a similar reversal would set back a bond sale by several weeks. But, feeling the pressure of the year-end deadline, the authority was back in the market in 10 days, after obtaining insurance for the issue from the Ambac Indemnity Corporation.

Insurance companies have begun to introduce a new homeowners' insurance policy nationwide, the first major revision in the standard policy in eight years. The new policy, referred to in the industry as the Homeowners' Program, raises some areas of coverage and lowers others, but keeps premium payments unchanged. Homeowners who buy the new policy will find, for example, that the basic deductible amount they must absorb before receiving anything for their claims has risen, effectively reducing their benefits. But they will also find that coverage for personal liability and medical expenses has risen and that the dollar limits for some common items in the home, such as jewelry, has also been increased.

''God doesn't like this competition.'' - Gerhard Haerendel, after halting plans to release an artificial comet because of bad weather. (A13:4.)

International Merrill Lynch was rebuffed in its attempt to become the first foreign member of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Despite previous indications that Merrill Lynch would be permitted to acquire the membership, the seat that it proposed to buy was sold to Utsumiya Securities, a Japanese firm, for $6.6 million. (Page D1.)

Ten years after the Federal Privacy Act was passed, an unusual mixture of business, professional and civil liberties organizations agree that its protections have been made out of date by computer technology. House and Senate members of both parties and such disparate entities as the National Rifle Association, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the United States Chamber of Commerce and the American Civil Liberties Union say Federal privacy laws should be reshaped in the next session of Congress, which convenes Jan. 3. Some believe new restrictions on the authority of the Federal Government to collect computerized information are required. Others worry that inaccurate information transmitted over huge Federal telecommunication networks poses a threat to the fair treatment of individual people. Still others are concerned that computerized communication forms do not enjoy adequate legal assurances of privacy. as do more traditional forms of communication.

When President John F. Kennedy asked the Harvard Business School to help establish an institute to train business executives in Central America, he envisioned a program whose graduates would spread the theory and practice of capitalism throughout the isthmus. Today, nearly two decades after the Central American Institute for Business Administration came into being, thousands of its graduates are among the region's most important and successful business leaders. But since Nicaragua's Sandinista-led revolution five years ago, the student body has changed discernibly and some have questioned whether the institute has a future here. The student body now includes many Sandinistas seeking to learn how to run Government agencies or how to administer the farms, factories and other businesses that have come into Government hands.