If this furlough is "funded" by your year round overtime, you can look at it as a way for the company to even out salary cash flow, by paying you the same whether things are busy or slack. Assuming you still get at least two non-furlough weeks away from work, I would see this as a good thing. A week at Xmas, at Thanksgiving, at Easter, and around the 4th of July, all without a pay cut and you can still take two weeks to go somewhere, or a week to go somewhere and 5 days of personal business one day at a time the rest of the year? Sounds heavenly, really.
But if there isn't enough year round overtime to add up to 3 or 4 weeks off on top of your annual leave provisions, then what's actually happening is "you get 3 weeks vacation, but I pick them." Such vacation has less value than one you can schedule at a time that works for you (traveling to a family wedding or reunion in June, taking the kids somewhere for March break, etc.) In addition if you use your paid time off for doctor's appointments or other personal business, this could really make those things feel more difficult.
I don't think you can ask your bosses not to have the furloughs, or to have them paid. No doubt they are happening because of a lack of things to do at those times. You can ask for more paid leave, but if they could afford that, they wouldn't be having the furloughs. Try asking for more overtime opportunities. Just say "I don't want to run out of paid time during the Xmas shutdown. Can we make sure I get 40 hours worth of PTO earned by then?" That's about 2 hours a week.
I worked at a place where we worked 8 hours (not counting lunch) a day so we were in the building for 8.5 or 9 hours. The rest of the industry had 7.5 hour days. After 14 8 hour days, we had accumulated 7 hours extra time - and they gave us every 3rd Friday off. We were expected to put doctors appointments and such on that day, so it cost the company less than it appeared to, but it was a handy way to live knowing you could shop in uncrowded stores or have a long weekend at least once a month, sometimes twice. If you work 2 hours of overtime a week, you'll accumulate 100 hours, which should carry you through 2.5 weeks of furlough. The company won't really be saving any money, but they might agree to it anyway.