javascript variable to php variable

I have a Javascript function that creates a div. It uses Ajax already to access the database so and creates a different div if the dates match. But now i want to take the 'date' variable from the Javascript div that matches the database and send it through another PHP function that gets all entries with that date and echoes them out to a Jquery popup. Just wondering what i'm doing wrong and if there's an easier way than the code below??

first AJAX call:

beforeMonth:function(date)
    {
        $.ajax({
            type: "GET",
            url: "getCalendarEvents.php",
            dataType: "json",
            data: "date="+date,
            async: false, //stop rendering the calender until eventdates is changed.
            success: function(json){
                $.fn.ical.changeEventDates(json); //this function changes the eventdates
            }   
        })
    }

getCalendarEvents.php

include ("Includes/dbConnect.php");

$_GET['date'];

$query2 = "SELECT * FROM events";
$checkevent = mysqli_query($cxn,$query2) or die("Couldn't execute query!");
$dates = array();

    while ($row2 = mysqli_fetch_array($checkevent))
        {
        $eventDate = $row2['eventDate'];
        $eventName = $row2['eventName'];
        $eventHost = $row2['host'];

        $dates[$eventDate] = array('title' => $eventName, 'desc' => $eventHost);

        }
    echo json_encode(array("dates" => $dates));
    exit;

Javascript in a seperate file( just the function that creates the div):

if(!datejson)
            {
                options.beforeDay(formatdate);
                $("table tr:last, obj").append("<td id = '"+formatdate+"'>"+i+"</td"); //add day
            }
            else
            {
                options.beforeDay(formatdate);
                $("table tr:last, obj").append("<td class='date_has_event' id = '"+formatdate+"' name='"+formatdate+"'>"+i+"<div class='title'><a href='#' class='popup'><img src='images/facebook.png' class='popup'/></a></div>"+"<div class='events'><ul><li><span class='desc'>"+datejson.desc+"</span></li></ul></div></td"); //add day  
            }

PHP in the HTML

<div id="popupContact">  
    <a href="#" id="popupContactClose">Close X</a>  
    <div id="popupHeader">Events occurring on</div>  
    <?php
                            include ("Includes/dbConnect.php");


                                $calendarDate=$_GET['formatdate']

                                $query = "SELECT * FROM events WHERE eventDate='$calendarDate'";

                                $check = mysqli_query($cxn,$query) or die("Couldn't execute query!");

                                while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($check))
                                  {

                                      $id = $row['eventID'];

                                      echo "<div class='submit_event_list'><a href='individual_event_page_main.php?id=$id'>";
                                      echo $row['eventName'];

                                      echo " | " . $row['venue'];
                                      echo " | " . $row['eventDate'];


                                      echo "</a></div>";
                                      echo "<br />";

                                  }


                                mysqli_close($cxn);
                                ?>  

    </p>  
</div>