Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'value' of null

I am unsure which of them is wrong because you did not provide your HTML, but one of these does not exist:

var str = document.getElementById("cal_preview").value;
var str1 = document.getElementById("year").value;
var str2 = document.getElementById("holiday").value;
var str3 = document.getElementById("cal_option").value;

There is either no element with the id cal_preview, year, holiday, cal_option, or some combination.

Therefore, JavaScript is unable to read the value of something that does not exist.

EDIT:

If you want to check that the element exists first, you could use an if statement for each:

var str,
element = document.getElementById('cal_preview');
if (element != null) {
    str = element.value;
}
else {
    str = null;
}

You could obviously change the else statement if you want or have no else statement at all, but that is all about preference.

Add a check

if (document.getElementById('cal_preview') != null) {
    str = document.getElementById("cal_preview").value;
}

Easier and more succinct with ||:

  var str = ((document.getElementById("cal_preview")||{}).value)||"";
  var str1 = ((document.getElementById("year")||{}).value)||"";
  var str2 = ((document.getElementById("holiday")||{}).value)||"";
  var str3 = ((document.getElementById("cal_option")||{}).value)||"";


    if (str=="" && str1=="" && str2=="" && str3=="" )
      {
        document.getElementById("calendar_preview").innerHTML="";
          return;
        } 
      if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
      {// code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
        xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
      }
      else
      {// code for IE6, IE5
        xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
      }

      xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function()
      {
        if (xmlhttp.readyState==4 && xmlhttp.status==200)
          {
            document.getElementById("calendar_preview").innerHTML=xmlhttp.responseText;
          }
      }

    var url = calendar_preview_vars.plugin_url + "?id=" + str +"&"+"y="+str1+"&"+"h="+str2+"&"+"opt="+str3;
    xmlhttp.open("GET",url,true);
    xmlhttp.send();