Two months ago, I published the video of myself unboxing my very first Tiffany & Co. necklace. The video was ready. The blog post wasn’t.
That seems to be the story of my life lately. 😂 I have photos edited, videos published, memories sitting inside my phone, and stories waiting for the right moment to become words.
Since Mother’s Day, I’ve already written about why I entered Tiffany & Co. in the first place, why the experience affected me so deeply, and why the necklace I chose became connected to Baby Lux.
Then I continued writing about Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Hermès. More recently, I paused the Luxury Series to share the beginning of my Reiki Level 1 journey and the quieter, more inward kind of healing I am now exploring.
But the beautiful boxes I promised to open are still here.
So today, I’m returning to the first one.
The little blue box…
Watch Me Unbox My First Tiffany & Co. Necklace
Watching the video now feels a little strange because the unboxing happened during an earlier chapter of my life, even though it was only a few months ago.
So much has happened since then.
At the time, I was still trying to process what that entire Mother’s Day experience meant to me. I was grieving Baby Lux, learning how to receive something beautiful without immediately feeling guilty, and trying to understand why walking into Tiffany had awakened so many emotions from childhood.
The video shows the visible part: the Tiffany packaging, the box, and the necklace inside. But, as always, there was another unboxing happening beneath the one captured on camera. I was also opening a part of myself that had spent years believing she needed to be practical, strong, useful, and self-sufficient before she was allowed to receive anything beautiful.
It Wasn’t a Surprise—But Opening It Still Felt Special
This wasn’t one of those unboxings where I had no idea what was waiting inside. I had chosen the necklace myself. I had tried it at the boutique. I had held it in my hands. I had seen the price. I had already gone through the practical questions my brain automatically asks whenever I am about to spend a significant amount of money:
Sulit ba? Practical ba? Worth it ba?
I knew exactly what was inside the box. And yet, opening it at a hotel room we were staying at in Cebu City still felt different.
Inside the boutique, everything had happened quickly and emotionally. There was the excitement of entering Tiffany for the first time, the kindness of the sales associate, the different pieces being shown to me, the goosebumps when I finally saw the necklace, and the realization that I had found something bearing one of Baby Lux’s names.
The unboxing allowed the experience to slow down. There was no longer a display case between me and the necklace. No sales associate waiting. No decision left to make. It was mine. That little moment of opening the box made the purchase feel real in a way that paying for it at the counter somehow hadn’t yet.
What Was Inside My Tiffany Blue Box
The necklace I chose was a Return to Tiffany heart pendant necklace in solid 18-karat gold. The heart already had the name Tiffany engraved on it, with a tiny natural diamond adding just enough sparkle without making the piece feel too formal or difficult to wear.
I had originally entered the boutique thinking I might choose an Elsa Peretti Open Heart piece. I wanted a heart because I was searching for something meaningful… something I could keep close to me as a reminder of Baby Lux. But when the sales associate showed me this particular necklace, I immediately felt something. It was a heart. It was gold. It already carried the word Tiffany. And Baby Lux’s full name was Chanel Tiffany Dior. I didn’t need to customize or engrave anything to make the connection. The name was already there, as though that little heart had been quietly waiting for me to find it. Maybe that sounds overly sentimental. But grief makes us notice meaning in places other people might overlook. Sometimes the heart recognizes its symbol before the practical mind can explain it.
The Honest Part: Was It Worth ₱93,000?
I paid approximately ₱93,000 for the necklace. Let’s be honest: that is a lot of money for a small gold pendant. I knew then, and I still know now, that I could have bought more 18-karat gold for the same amount from another jeweler. If I evaluated the necklace only according to its gold weight, the most practical answer would probably have been to buy elsewhere. But I wasn’t shopping for the greatest number of grams my money could buy. I was choosing one very specific piece.
Part of the price was the Tiffany name, design, craftsmanship, boutique experience, packaging, and all the emotion people attach to that little blue box. Whether those things are worth paying for is deeply personal. For someone else, the answer may be no—and that would be completely reasonable. For me, in that moment, the value came from the entire story. It came from walking into a boutique I had once considered too intimidating. It came from allowing myself to choose what I genuinely loved without immediately talking myself out of it. It came from seeing Baby Lux’s name already engraved on a small gold heart. And it came from knowing that this was not going to be an ordinary piece of jewelry in my collection. I wasn’t buying it as a financial investment or as the most economical way to own gold. I was buying a symbol. Symbols don’t follow price-per-gram calculations very well.
What the Little Blue Box Could—and Couldn’t—Hold
The necklace could never replace Baby Lux. It could not undo what happened, erase grief, or give us the years we imagined we would have with her. No object, luxury or otherwise, could ever do that. But it gave my love somewhere physical to rest.
Grief can feel unbearably invisible. Other people continue with their lives. Time moves forward. The world becomes normal again even when part of you still wants proof that someone existed and mattered. This necklace became one small form of that proof for me. Not proof for anyone else. Proof for my own heart…. Something I could see, touch, and keep. Something that quietly says:
She existed. She mattered. She changed me.
That meaning didn’t come entirely from Tiffany. It came from me… from the love, grief, memory, and intention I placed into the piece. Tiffany simply created the little gold heart that was able to carry it.
From Tiffany to Reiki: Two Different Kinds of Healing
I know it may seem as though my blog is moving in completely different directions. One week, I’m writing about Reiki, meditation, and turning inward. The next, I’m returning to a ₱93,000 Tiffany necklace and a luxury unboxing video.
But I no longer see those things as contradictions. My life is not divided into a “luxury version” of me and a “spiritual version” of me. I am both.
The Tiffany necklace became an external symbol >>> something tangible that helped me hold love and memory after Baby Lux.
Reiki invited me to explore healing internally, through stillness, self-practice, attention, and learning to listen to myself.
One came inside a little blue box.
The other asked me to close my eyes and look within.
Both became part of the same season in which I was learning that healing can take many forms. Sometimes it involves therapy, medical care, difficult conversations, or simply allowing time to pass. Sometimes it involves rituals, symbols, prayer, meditation, movement, writing, or creating meaning from what we have survived.
For me, this necklace and my current spiritual practices do not compete with one another. They simply reflect different parts of how I have been learning to carry grief and how I have been slowly returning to myself.
Why I’m Sharing the Unboxing Now
The YouTube video has already been online for two months, so technically, this is a very delayed unboxing post. (sorry po, tao lang ^_^…)
But perhaps that delay gave me something useful.
Immediately after buying something beautiful, it is easy to write only about the excitement: the packaging, the brand, the sparkle, and the feeling of finally owning it.
Writing about it now allows me to see the experience with a little more distance. The ribbon has already been untied. The box has already been opened. The purchase is no longer new. What remains is the meaning. And that, more than the unboxing itself, is what I wanted to preserve here.
The First Beautiful Box, Finally Opened
So this is the first promised unboxing chapter of my Luxury Series. Not a haul. Not an attempt to convince anyone that spending ₱93,000 on a necklace is necessary, practical, or automatically healing. And not a declaration that material things can fill the spaces left by the people we have lost. It is simply the story of one little blue box, one gold heart, and one mother who needed somewhere tangible to place a love that had nowhere else to go.
When I first walked into Tiffany, I thought I was finally fulfilling a childhood dream. When I chose the necklace, I realized I was looking for Baby Lux. And when I finally opened the box, I understood that the most valuable thing inside it wasn’t the gold, the diamond, or even the Tiffany name. It was the meaning I had placed there. The little blue box did not contain my daughter. But it contained a heart I chose because she existed. And that is why opening it will always mean more to me than an ordinary luxury unboxing.
This post is part of my Luxury Series, where I share not only the pieces I bought or received, but also the personal stories behind them. You can begin with I Thought I Wanted Luxury. What I Really Wanted Was Safety and then read My Very First Breakfast at Tiffany’s for the complete story of how I found this necklace.